What were we supposed to think?”
Grandma’s voice cut through the room.
“You were supposed to think she was your daughter.”
Mom turned toward her.
Grandma was standing now, leaning on her cane.
“I have listened to you make excuses for treating Emma as less important for years,” she said.
“Tonight you invited an entire family and excluded one child of your own.
Then, when something disappeared, you were almost eager to believe she stole it.”
“Mother—”
“No.”
I’d never heard Grandma speak to Mom like that.
“You don’t get to call cruelty a boundary just because the word sounds respectable.”
Madison shook her head impatiently.
“Can everyone stop acting like Emma is some innocent victim? You don’t know what she’s like.”
“Then tell me,” Derek said.
His voice was quiet.
That was somehow worse than shouting.
Madison turned toward him.
“What?”
“Tell me what Emma did that justified using our daughter to frame her for theft.”
Madison stared at him.
“I did not frame anybody.”
Derek pointed at the velvet box still in the officer’s hand.
“Kloe described exactly where you told her to put it.”
“She’s confused.”
“She said you handed it to her in the kitchen.”
“Derek—”
“Did you?”
Madison’s silence lasted too long.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, the expression on his face had changed completely.
“You used our daughter.”
Madison’s anger finally cracked into panic.
“I just wanted Emma to leave.”
Nobody moved.
The admission hung there.
Madison seemed to realize what she’d said only after the words were out.
The officer asked, “So you did give the bracelet to your daughter?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
She looked toward Mom.
Mom looked away.
That tiny reaction told me something else.
“Mom knew,” I said.
Mom jerked her head toward me.
“Excuse me?”
“You knew Madison wanted to set me up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I replayed the evening in my head.
Mom had been furious when I first arrived.
She had threatened to throw me out herself.
But after Kloe walked near my bag, Mom’s behavior changed too.
She stopped demanding that I leave.
Instead, she let Dad keep talking.
Kept me in the room.
Kept everyone watching.
