Chapter 6 - The First Real Warning Was a Missing Earring
Three months before the fire, Laura found one of Margaret’s pearl earrings beneath:
Emma’s bed.
“Why is this here?”
Emma immediately looked frightened.
Not guilty.
Frightened.
Laura noticed.
“Emma?”
She started crying.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“No one said you did.”
“Grandma did.”
Margaret claimed Emma had taken the earring during:
a sleepover.
She said she searched Emma’s backpack and jacket pockets.
Found nothing.
Then placed Emma in the sunroom.
“For how long?” Laura asked.
Emma shrugged.
“A long time.”
Margaret later admitted:
forty minutes.
Then the earring turned up in:
Margaret’s own coat pocket.
No apology.
She told Emma:
“Then consider the lesson useful anyway.”
Laura was furious.
She told me:
“No more sleepovers.”
I agreed.
For:
three weeks.
Then school closed for a teacher-training day.
Laura had patients.
I had a warehouse review.
Margaret offered:
“I’ll take her.”
Laura said:
“No.”
I said:
“It’s one day.”
She looked at me.
“Daniel.”
“She knows she crossed a line.”
“How?”
“Because I told her.”
Laura exhaled.
Then gave in.
That became clue two.
Convenience beat:
May you like
instinct.
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