Chapter 4 - The Locked Closet
The storage closet was in the basement.
I had walked past it hundreds of times.
Paint cans. Holiday decorations. Old tools. That was what I thought was inside.
The key turned with a metallic click.
When I opened the door, I couldn’t speak.
Maya’s winter coat hung from a nail.
Her missing tablet sat inside a plastic bin.
The expensive headphones I bought for her birthday were still sealed in the box.
Three pairs of shoes.
Two backpacks.
A small jewelry box.
Birthday cards.
Gift receipts.
Even a framed photo of Maya and her late mother, Renee.
I picked it up.
The glass was cracked.
“Why is this in here?”
Simone stayed at the bottom of the stairs.
“She cluttered her room.”
I turned around. “A picture of her mother cluttered her room?”
“She had too much stuff.”
Maya rushed past me.
She opened the jewelry box.
Then she stopped.
“No.”
Her voice broke.
She searched the box again.
“No, no, no.”
“What?”
“My necklace.”
“What necklace?”
She looked at me like I had forgotten something sacred.
Then I remembered.
Renee’s necklace.
A thin gold chain with a tiny oval locket.
Renee had worn it through chemotherapy.
Before she died, she made me promise Maya could have it when she turned twelve.
I gave it to her six months ago.
I looked at Simone.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Maya started crying harder.
“You took it.”
“I did not.”
“You took it out of my drawer.”
“Maya, stop accusing adults of things.”
I stepped between them.
“She gets to accuse whoever she wants until that necklace is found.”
Simone’s face hardened.
“You’re choosing her over your wife.”
The words were so absurd I almost didn’t understand them.
“She’s my daughter.”
“I’m your family too.”
“So is she.”
“You don’t see what she does.”
“What does she do?”
“She manipulates you.”
Maya stared at her.
Simone pointed. “That. That innocent face. She knows exactly how to make you feel guilty because her mother died.”
I heard Maya inhale sharply.
I had never wanted to hate someone in my own home.
That night, I moved Simone’s things into the guest room.
Then I sat with Maya until she fell asleep.
At 1:13 a.m., I went back to the basement.
The jewelry box bothered me.
Everything else had been stored carefully.
Why take only the necklace?
I searched the bins.
Nothing.
Then I noticed one of Simone’s old handbags behind a box of Christmas lights.
Inside was a pawnshop ticket.
Item: gold locket necklace.
Amount paid: $680.
Date: three weeks earlier.
My hands went numb.
There was something else folded behind the ticket.
A bank deposit slip.
Same day.
Same amount.
Deposited into an account I didn’t recognize.
At the bottom was Simone’s signature.
And beneath her name was a second name.
May you like
Darius Cole.
Her brother.
