Chapter 10: Zero Stars

The housekeeper held out the necklace, and every eye in Pearl's bedroom turned to me.

Rosalind pressed her hand to her mouth.

"Oh, Hallie," she said. "Oh, my dear. You only had to ask."

The comments arrived before I could breathe.

"tea_and_spoilers: THIS IS IT. This is the scene. (2,100 likes)"

"bookbabe_91: Say you borrowed it. Cry a little. They'll forgive you. (4,300 likes)"

It was the top comment, with four thousand three hundred likes.

I had never in my life gone against a top comment.

"I didn't borrow it," I said.

"Hallie," Rosalind said gently. "Nobody is angry."

"I didn't take it. I didn't borrow it. I have never opened that safe."

"The necklace was in your drawer."

"Then someone put it there."

"It's all right to be ashamed," Rosalind said, to the room.

"She has had a hard few weeks. The pond. The photographs."

"A woman under that much pressure does things she doesn't understand."

The whole family looked at me with pity, and it was worse than anger.

I looked for the top comment, and it was still waiting with its four thousand likes.

I turned my back on it.

"I will not say I borrowed it," I said.

"I am not a thief, and I'm not going to be a liar either, not for a necklace."

Pearl's cane tapped once on the floor.

It was the first time she had moved.

"That," she said, "is the most expensive thing anyone has said in this house all week."

Tobias stepped to my side.

He did not touch me. He stood so near I could feel the warmth of him through my sleeve.

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