“I don’t want to,” I said honestly. “I just need an explanation. Because I saw someone in a gray hoodie go into my room on the security footage.”
“Gray hoodie?” She stared at me for a long moment, then stood up and walked to her closet. She pulled out empty hangers, pushed aside jackets, then turned back to me.
“My gray hoodie,” she said. “The oversized one I wear all the time. It’s been missing for two days.”
I blinked. “What?”
She stared at me for a long moment,
then stood up and walked
to her closet.
“It disappeared, Dad. I thought I’d left it in the laundry. I thought maybe you washed it. But you didn’t. It’s just gone.”
Something cold and heavy settled in my chest. I stormed back downstairs. Marisa was in the kitchen, calmly pouring herself a glass of water like she hadn’t just detonated a bomb in my living room.
“Avery’s hoodie has been missing,” I revealed.
Marisa didn’t flinch. “So?”
“So that could be anyone in the video.”
She tilted her head, annoyed. “Are you kidding me?”
Something cold and heavy settled in my chest.
I stared at her. “Wait a second… what safe code did you see entered in that footage?”
Her mouth opened, then closed. “What?”
“Tell me the code,” I repeated slowly.
Her eyes flashed. “Why are you interrogating me?”
Suddenly I remembered something. Marisa had joked once about how “old-school” I was for having a personal safe. And she’d insisted we install a security camera “for safety” because my neighborhood was “quiet, but you never know.”
Suddenly I remembered something.
I pulled out my phone and opened the camera app — the one Marisa had set up. I scrolled through the archived footage. And there it was.
A few minutes before the hooded figure entered my bedroom, the camera caught Marisa in the hallway… holding Avery’s gray hoodie.
Everything inside me just froze as I played the next clip.
Everything inside me just froze as I played the next clip.
Marisa was entering my room, opening my dresser, and crouching at the safe. And then, she was holding something up to the camera with a small, triumphant smile.
Money.
I turned the phone toward her. “Explain this.”
Marisa’s face drained of color, then hardened like a concrete setting.
She was holding something up to the camera
with a small, triumphant smile.
“You don’t understand,” she snapped. “I was trying to save you.”
“By framing my daughter? By stealing from me? Are you insane?”
“She’s NOT your daughter,” Marisa hissed.
And there it was. The real truth she’d been holding back.
“She’s not your blood,” Marisa continued, stepping closer. “You’ve poured your entire life into her. The money, the house, the college fund. For what? So she can leave at 18 and forget you exist?”
And there it was.
The real truth she’d been holding back.
Everything inside me went very still and very quiet.
“Get out,” I said.
