Chapter 2: The Envelope on the Table
I stood up slowly and turned to face Juliette.
"Emma says you pushed her."
The silence that followed lasted only three seconds, but it felt much longer.
Juliette's expression didn't break the way a guilty person's usually does.
It hardened.
"She's seven, Christopher.
She's frightened and confused."
"She described the stairs too.
The bruise.
Things a frightened child doesn't invent."
"Children exaggerate.
You know that."
I looked at my staff member, Rosa, who had been standing near the terrace doors since she came running out.
Something in her face made me stop.
She wasn't looking at Juliette.
She was looking at the ground.
"Rosa," I said quietly.
"Did you see anything?"
Her hands tightened at her sides.
She didn't answer immediately, and that pause told me everything.
Before she could speak, Juliette took one step toward her.
"Rosa has nothing to say," Juliette said.
Her voice was calm.
Almost gentle.
"Do you, Rosa?"
Rosa's eyes came up and met mine for just a moment.
Then she looked away again.
That was when I noticed something I had missed before.
Juliette's handbag was sitting on the poolside table where she had set it down earlier.
The front pocket was unzipped, and the corner of something was visible inside.
A small white envelope with my name written on it in handwriting I didn't recognize.
I reached for it.
"Don't," Juliette said.
---
What's inside that envelope — and what does Rosa know that she's too afraid to say?
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The full truth is darker than you think.
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