He nods.“Right side of the sink.Behind the breadbox.”
I pivot.“Let’s go.”
In the kitchen, the coffee machine is still on.The counter on the right side of the sink is clean—too clean.The breadbox, and…
No evidence bag.
Only a small pink rectangle propped against the base of the breadbox.The envelope’s paper has a faint satin sheen, like a cheap valentine trying to look expensive.
My name is written on the front in hand-lettered calligraphy that imitates kindness.
Daniela.
The room tilts again.For a heartbeat, the envelope eats the world.
Raven sees it as I lift my hand.“Don’t,” she says, the word quick and quiet at the same time.“Wait.”
Vinnie moves, and I register the gentle pressure of his palm at my elbow, reining me in from the impulse to snatch, to tear, to read.He grabs a pair of nitrile gloves from the drawer by the fridge, snaps them on, and passes another pair to me.I tug them over fingers that don’t feel like my own.Nothing does anymore.
We crowd the counter, three bodies making a wall around a pink square.
Vinnie leans in and sniffs, and for a stupid heartbeat I want to laugh because it’s so meticulous and absurd.
And necessary.
“Angle your phone light,” he says.
Raven obeys, phone tilted, the beam slicing clean along the envelope’s edges.No seams ripped and resealed.No raised bulge beyond what a single thin page would make.No powder dusted along the flap.No telltale mechanical secures.No string.Just a small sticker—a golden heart—sealing the flap.
“See?”Raven whispers.“He wants you to read it.”
Of course he does.He lives for drama.
My stomach heaves.I swallow it down, breathe.
“In a second,” Vinnie says.“Let me shoot it.”
He takes three photos from three angles, timestamped, and then one with my gloved hand hovering close and another with it farther away.Then he steps back and nods at me.
I slide the envelope toward me, slowly and carefully.It makes the driest whisper against the counter.The heart sticker is centered as if it’s jeering at me.
I hook a gloved fingernail under the edge.
