Chapter 2: The Face Inside the Locket
The maid ended the call just as a floorboard creaked behind her.
“Who were you talking to?” the woman demanded.
The maid turned slowly.
“No one, ma’am.”
The woman snatched the phone from her hand and checked the screen.
When she saw Mr.
Oleso’s name, her face tightened.
“You had no right to call him.”
“You had no right to treat a hungry child this way,” the maid replied, her voice shaking.
“She hasn’t eaten since yesterday.”
The little girl dropped the bowl.
Rice scattered across the floor as the woman stepped toward her.
“Go upstairs,” she ordered.
“And remember what I told you to say.”
The girl stared at the maid, terrified.
“But you said my father didn’t want me anymore.”
The maid froze.
“Your father?”
Before the woman could answer, headlights swept across the window.
A car door slammed outside.
Mr.
Oleso entered moments later and looked from the rice on the floor to the frightened child.
Then his gaze fell on a silver locket hanging from her neck.
“Where did you get that?” he whispered.
The woman in magenta suddenly went pale.
The girl opened the locket and held it toward him.
Inside was a faded photograph of Mr.
Oleso standing beside a woman he had spent eight years believing was gone.
Why did the girl have Mr.
May you like
Oleso’s photograph—and what was the woman hiding?
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