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Me: I don’t like this, either.
That was the one boon I had in all of this. That he still trusted me.
It meant so much because it had taken me so long to trust him. His trust felt undeserved and therefore, more cherished.
The worst part of all of this, however, was his revelation yesterday: that the owners of the tablets that had been stolen were pressing charges. Which meant that if I wasn’t acquitted, I could go to jail.
Jail. It felt like my life was over.
“They accused me of stealing at Ever After.”
Chloe scoffed. “You’re joking, right?”
I rested the rag on the floor by my leg. “Before Christmas, there was an incident, and then Christmas Eve, they supposedly caught me on camera.”
Speaking the words made me hollow inside, and yet it was its own kind of cleansing, too.
I needed to get this off my chest to someone, and I hadn’t had the heart to call Grammy or Addie and tell either of them.
Chloe splayed her feet on the teal and white checkered linoleum. “Clearly, they don’t know you at all.”
“You believe I didn’t do it?”
“Of course, I do. You’re the most giving person I know. Allof your extra time goes to making things for other people. How could they ever think you’d do that? Who was really on the camera?”
“That’s just it,” I said, dropping my washcloth into the bucket of murky water. I needed to get some fresh water anyway. “I don’t know who it was, but I saw the feed. It looked like me. I got set up. And now the people whose items were stolen are pressing charges. They want justice.”
“Pressing charges? So you—are you going to be arrested?”
I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my wrist, fighting off the emotion clouding my throat. “No. I have to attend an arraignment. I’ll have to plead in front of a judge.”
It felt so unreal, it wasn’t funny. This kind of thing happened in movies or to other people. Not to me.
“It was Stina, wasn’t it?” Chloe guessed. “No wonder you haven’t gone to work.”
“I quit just before Christmas,” I said. “I think she did this to get back at me. I think it was Stina and Pris, but I don’t know how to prove it before the arraignment.”
“When is it?”
“In two weeks,” I said, the sense of defeat sinking hard enough to crush my ribs into my lungs.
“Have you talked to your dad?”
I shook my head. I’d expected him to come over after learning I’d quit, after news of the arraignment, but he hadn’t reached out at all.
The truth was, I’d all but given up on him since he allowed Stina to root me out of hislife.
“Go to the police,” Chloe insisted.
“And say what? It’s my word against theirs.”
It was why Hawk hadn’t taken things to the police yet, either. He didn’t want them siding with Stina and arresting me since all we had was that video footage. His employees had pressed charges, but he wasn’t.
Chloe inhaled. “What about that billionaire of yours?”
“The police dusted for fingerprints but found nothing. He’s hired an investigator to look into Stina and Pris,” I said. “He’s got his entire crew of security looking into the feeds and trying to find flaws.”
“So he’s backing you up.”
