Chapter 4 - Cassandra Had Been Erasing Natalie One Object at a Time
The jewelry hurt differently from the money.
Money is numbers.
Natalie’s things had fingerprints in my memory.
The sapphire ring she wore whenever we went somewhere formal.
The thin gold bracelet Lucy used to touch while nursing as a baby.
The locket Natalie planned to give Lucy on her tenth birthday.
After Natalie died, Cassandra initially seemed respectful.
She told me:
“Those things should always belong to Lucy.”
I believed her.
A year later, when renovations began at the estate, Cassandra suggested moving the jewelry from my bedroom safe to professional storage.
I agreed.
She handled the appointment.
Or claimed she did.
I never asked for the vault receipt.
That was my failure.
The blue velvet case disappeared from the house.
Whenever Lucy asked where Mommy’s jewelry was, Cassandra answered:
“Safe until you’re older.”
Apparently it had never gone to a bank.
Logan had begun moving pieces through private jewelry buyers.
One item at a time.
Never enough at once to trigger my attention.
Cassandra understood something ugly about grief.
People avoid inventorying the dead.
I did.
Opening Natalie’s jewelry case felt like reopening the last weeks of her life.
So I trusted Cassandra to preserve what I could not emotionally touch.
She used that distance against both of us.
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And Lucy—the child everyone assumed understood least—was the first person who noticed the box was empty.
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