Chapter 4 - The Blue Folder
The next morning, Detective Vega met us in the hospital family room. She told us Dad was being held on the assault allegations and that investigators had also confirmed an unresolved warrant connected to the old financial case.
"That doesn't mean you have to solve his case," she told me. "It means you get to tell the truth about what happened yesterday."
Mom asked for an officer to accompany someone to retrieve our clothes, medications, and my school things. Caleb volunteered. So did I.
"No," Mom said immediately.
"I know where the folder is."
Her face changed. "What folder?"
I remembered a blue plastic folder tucked into the spine of a school project binder. Every time Dad searched my room for a missing charger or receipt, Mom would straighten that binder afterward. I had thought she was being fussy.
The officer let Caleb and me enter only after checking the house. The kitchen smelled of coffee and the lemon cleaner Mom used when she was nervous. The broken cabinet drawer was still on the floor.
"We can leave," Caleb said.
"I want my math homework," I answered. "And the blue binder."
In my bedroom, I pulled the binder from a shelf. Inside its plastic cover were attendance awards from elementary school. Behind the last page was a thin envelope marked EMILY, NOT YET.
I had never seen my name in Mom's handwriting look so frightened.
"Don't open it here," Caleb said. He called Detective Vega and asked how to handle the envelope without disturbing evidence.
While we waited, my phone buzzed. It was a message in the family group chat from Aunt Denise, Dad's sister.
YOUR FATHER IS IN JAIL BECAUSE YOU LIED. GOOD GIRLS PROTECT THEIR FAMILIES.
May you like
Then a second message appeared. It was a photo of me leaving the house with the blue binder in my arms.
Someone had been watching from across the street.
