Chapter 2: The Blue Envelope
“Dad,” Ethan whispered, “Mom put the jewelry in Maya’s bag.”
My hand tightened around the mug.
“Are you certain?”
“I saw her,” he said, trembling.
“She told me Maya would be taken away if I said anything.
She said Caleb and I would lose you too.”
Caleb began crying again.
“Maya knew something Mom didn’t want you to know.”
“What did she know?”
Before he could answer, Ethan pulled his tablet from beneath the counter.
“Caleb was recording us playing.
Mom didn’t see it.”
On the screen, Vivian entered Maya’s room holding the jewelry box.
She slipped something into the backpack, then made a phone call.
“Maya found the blue envelope,” Vivian said in the recording.
“She has to be gone before my husband sees it.”
My heart pounded.
“What blue envelope?”
A floorboard creaked behind me.
Vivian stood in the doorway, her smile gone.
In one hand was Ethan’s missing phone.
In the other was a blue envelope bearing my name.
“You should have stayed out of this,” she said.
Then someone knocked hard at the front door—and Vivian went pale when a woman called my name from outside.
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Who was at the door, and what had Vivian hidden in that envelope?
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