Chapter 1
I was folding laundry when my employer’s wife stormed into the room and slapped me across the face. Then she accused me of stealing $5,000 from her husband’s locked drawer.
I had worked for the Miller family in Boston for almost three years.
That afternoon, I was folding their children’s clothes when Mrs. Miller suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“Where is it?”
I looked up. “Where is what?”
She crossed the room and slapped me before I could stand.
“The money.”
My cheek burned.
“What money?”
“Five thousand dollars is missing from my husband’s desk.”
I stared at her. “I’ve never touched his desk.”
She grabbed my laundry basket and dumped everything onto the floor.
“Don’t lie to me, Hannah.”
I dropped to my knees and started picking up the children’s clothes.
“I didn’t steal anything.”
She kicked one of my bags toward me.
“Then explain why poor little you suddenly has cash.”
My hands stopped.
There was an envelope sticking out of my purse.
I had never seen it before.
Mrs. Miller snatched it and pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills.
“You disgusting thief.”
My stomach turned cold.
“I swear, that isn’t mine.”
She laughed.
“Of course it isn’t. It belongs to my husband.”
Then she called him.
Mr. Miller came home twenty minutes later with two police officers behind him.
The moment he saw the money, his face went pale.
“Hannah,” he whispered, “tell me you didn’t do this.”
“I didn’t.”
Mrs. Miller folded her arms. “She was probably planning to disappear tonight.”
One officer asked me to open my purse completely.
I did.
Under my wallet was a small silver key.
Mr. Miller stared at it.
“That opens my desk drawer.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve never seen that key in my life.”
Mrs. Miller smiled for the first time.
Then their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, appeared at the top of the stairs.
She looked at the money in her mother’s hand.
Then she looked straight at me.
“Dad,” Sophie said quietly, “Mom put that envelope in Hannah’s purse this morning.”
The entire room went silent.
Mrs. Miller’s face changed.
May you like
But Sophie wasn’t finished.
She pointed toward the security camera above the hallway and whispered, “And that’s not the worst thing she did.”
