“And found the locket.”
Savannah nodded.
“Behind it was a note about the blue box.
Mom must never have known the locket opened.”
I glanced at the envelope in the box.
“What happened when she saw you?”
Savannah’s face changed.
Not fear this time.
Shame.
That made me angrier than the bruises did.
“She asked what we were doing.
I told her Khloe found Grandma’s necklace.
She went white.
Not angry at first.
Scared.
She told Khloe to hand it over.”
Khloe whispered, “I said no.”
Savannah continued.
“Mom grabbed the handles of Khloe’s chair and tried to pull her away from the closet.
I stepped between them.
I told her to let go.
She kept saying the box belonged to her and that we were stealing.”
I looked at Savannah’s swollen eye.
“Then she hit you.”
Savannah stared at the table.
“She shoved me first.
I hit the counter.
When I tried to get the box, she came at me again.”
Khloe’s voice was almost inaudible.
“She said Mom should leave me somewhere if I couldn’t learn to stay out of grown people’s business.”
Savannah’s eyes filled.
Mine didn’t.
I had gone past tears.
I opened the small envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Grandma.
The paper trembled slightly in my hand as I read.
Grandma explained that the house was meant to provide stability for Savannah and Khloe.
She wrote that Khloe would need a home adapted to her needs as she grew and that she did not want the property sold out from under them.
Patricia could live there, Grandma said, because she was her daughter and because family should have a place to land—but the house was not Patricia’s to sell, mortgage, or use as leverage over anyone else.
One sentence stopped me.
If Patricia ever tried to use the house to control Savannah or Khloe, Grandma wanted me involved.
Me.
The daughter Patricia liked calling selfish because I’d enlisted and left town.
The daughter she’d spent years convincing everyone cared more about rules than family.
Grandma had apparently trusted my rules.
The dispatcher asked whether Savannah was conscious and breathing normally.
“Conscious,” I said.
“Breathing, but she’s having pain around her ribs.”
Savannah glared at me weakly.
“Stop sounding so calm.”
“I am calm.”
“That’s worse.”
For half a second, she almost smiled.
Then someone pounded on my door.
Khloe jumped.
Savannah turned pale.
