Chapter 12: The Study

On Thursday evening both my parents were at the board dinner, and I let myself into my own house with my key.

Noemi came in behind me and shut the door very softly.

"This is breaking and entering," she whispered.

"I live here."

"You live at your grandmother's."

"I have a key. And I'm getting my school clothes."

The house was clean and quiet, with the smell of lemon polish and my mother's coffee.

My blazer hung in the hall closet, where it always had.

I took it down and held it, and for a second I forgot why I had come.

"Marisol," Noemi said. "You said the study."

I nodded.

My father's study was at the end of the hall, a small room with a leather chair and a globe on a stand.

I had spun that globe a thousand times as a little girl.

The key to his desk was taped under the stand.

I knew because I had found it at seven, playing hide and seek.

He had made me promise never to touch the drawer.

I took the key out and held it in my palm.

"What are we looking for?" Noemi asked.

"An envelope. The one he gave Lindsey's mother."

"He'd have given her cash."

"Then something he kept a record of."

I unlocked the bottom drawer and pulled it out.

Under a stack of school newsletters sat a shoebox with a rubber band around it.

I slid the band off and lifted the lid.

It was full of cards.

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