I stared at her.
“A joke?”
“That’s what he claims.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“He’s lying.”
“I believe you,” Detective Alvarez said. “But belief isn’t enough. We need evidence.”
I raised my phone.
“You have the video.”
“We do.”
“What else do you need?”
She looked at me carefully.
“Everything you remember.”
So I told her.
Everything.
The phone call.
The words Derek said.
The gloves.
The backpack.
The pill bottle.
The second phone call.
And then something else came back to me.
“Derek said, ‘She took the gray backpack, right?’”
Detective Alvarez stopped writing.
“Who was he talking to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure those were his exact words?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Mom.
“Who knew Maya would be carrying that particular backpack today?”
Mom frowned.
“I did.”
“Anyone else?”
“Derek.”
The detective nodded.
“That matters.”
Then my mother suddenly stood up.
“Wait.”
She walked toward the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She opened a drawer.
Inside were envelopes, old bills, keys, and paperwork.
She began searching through them.
“What are you looking for?”
“The property deed.”
My heart sank.
Mom pulled out a folder.
She opened it.
Then she stopped.
Her hands began shaking.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“The deed isn’t here.”
“What?”
“I always keep it here.”
Detective Alvarez stepped closer.
“When did you last see it?”
“Last week.”
Mom’s face changed.
“It was here.”
She flipped through the papers.
“Someone took it.”
The detective immediately became serious.
“Mrs. Miller, does Derek have any reason to want that document?”
Mom didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
We all knew.
The apartment.
The one her father had paid off.
The one Mom had always promised would belong to Maya and me.
The one Derek had spent months trying to get control of.
Detective Alvarez looked at her partner.
“Check the suspect’s belongings.”
The officer left.
A few minutes later, he returned.
He was carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a folded document.
Mom’s face went pale.
“That’s it.”
Detective Alvarez took one look.
“Is this the deed?”
Mom nodded.
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
Derek hadn’t simply tried to frame Maya.
He had been building a plan.
First, make Mom look like she was stealing medication.
Then make Maya look like a drug user.
Then make me look like an accomplice.
And somehow, in all that chaos, get the property.
But why?
That question stayed with me.
Until Detective Alvarez said something that made everything click.
“There’s a mortgage application in Derek’s car.”
Mom stared at her.
“What?”
“A loan application.”
“Under whose name?”
“Yours.”
Mom’s mouth fell open.
I felt a chill crawl up my arms.
“He was going to sell the apartment.”
Detective Alvarez shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
She opened the folder.
“He was trying to use the property as collateral.”
Mom sat down.
“Without my permission?”
“Apparently.”
I looked at the detective.
“Could he do that?”
“Not legally.”
“But he thought he could?”
“We’re still investigating.”
Then the detective’s phone rang.
She answered.
“Alvarez.”
She listened.
Her eyes moved toward me.
“You’re sure?”
Another pause.
“Okay. Send it over.”
She hung up.
“What happened?” Mom asked.
“The school found something.”
“What?”
“The security footage shows Derek entering the school before the incident.”
Mom’s expression hardened.
“And?”
“He wasn’t alone.”
The room went silent.
“Who was with him?” I asked.
The detective looked at me.
“Your mother’s coworker.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Her name is Linda Parker.”
Mom stared at the detective.
“No.”
“You know her?”
“She’s the assistant manager at the pharmacy.”
The detective nodded.
“She appears to have been communicating with Derek for several weeks.”
Mom covered her mouth.
I remembered Linda.
She was always friendly to me.
She’d given me free candy when I came into the pharmacy after school.
She’d hugged Mom when Mom was upset.
She’d even told me once:
“Your family is lucky to have such a hardworking mother.”
Now I wondered how much of that had been fake.
Detective Alvarez continued.
“There’s more.”
She placed a printed photograph on the table.
It showed Derek and Linda sitting together in a restaurant.
They weren’t sitting like coworkers.
They were holding hands.
Mom stared at the photograph.
Her face went completely still.
“How long?”
The detective didn’t answer immediately.
“At least six months.”
My mother looked away.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
I stepped toward her.
“Mom…”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She wiped her face.
“No crying.”
Then she looked at me.
“Not for him.”
MAYA COMES HOME
It was nearly seven when Maya finally came through the front door.
Mom ran to her.
The two of them hugged so tightly that I started crying.
Maya held Mom for a long time.
Then she came to me.
“You saved me.”
I shook my head.
“We saved each other.”
She smiled.
Then she whispered:
“I was so scared.”
“So was I.”
“I thought they were going to arrest me.”
“They almost did.”
Maya looked toward the living room.
“Where is Derek?”
“In custody.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“Good.”
For several minutes, none of us spoke.
Then Maya noticed the police evidence bags on the table.
Her eyes widened.
“What else did he do?”
Mom looked at her.
“He tried to take the apartment.”
Maya’s face hardened.
“I knew he wanted it.”
“You knew?”
“Not exactly.”
She sat down.
“Last month, I heard him talking to someone. He said that once you were ‘forced to move,’ everything would become easier.”
Mom stared at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought I misunderstood.”
I looked at Maya.
“What did he say?”
She hesitated.
“He said we were going to lose the apartment.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“I should have listened to my instincts.”
I reached for her hand.
“Maybe we all should have.”
Then Maya looked at me.
“How did you know to record him?”
I shrugged.
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just got scared.”
Maya smiled sadly.
“Sometimes being scared makes you smarter.”
I smiled back.
But none of us knew yet that the hardest part wasn’t over.
THREE DAYS LATER
Derek was formally charged.
The school cleared Maya of all wrongdoing.
The pharmacy suspended Mom temporarily while investigators reviewed the records.
It should have felt like the nightmare was ending.
But it wasn’t.
Because on the fourth morning, Detective Alvarez came to our apartment.
She had a folder.
“Mrs. Miller, we found something.”
Mom invited her inside.
“What?”
“We traced the medication.”
She placed several documents on the table.
“The bottle planted in Maya’s backpack came from your pharmacy.”
Mom nodded.
“We knew that.”
“But the medication wasn’t stolen by Derek.”
Mom frowned.
“What?”
“It was legitimately dispensed.”
“To whom?”
Detective Alvarez looked at me.
Then back at Mom.
“To Derek.”
Silence.
Mom’s eyes widened.
“That’s impossible.”
“He picked it up three days before the incident.”
“Under what name?”
“Derek Miller.”
Mom shook her head.
“He isn’t legally my husband.”
The detective nodded.
“We know.”
“Then why was it filled?”
“Because the prescription was written by a doctor.”
Mom looked confused.
“Who?”
The detective slid the paper forward.
The name belonged to a physician none of us knew.
“Dr. Michael Parker.”
Mom stared at it.
Then she whispered:
“Parker?”
Detective Alvarez nodded.
“Linda Parker’s husband.”
My blood ran cold.
“So Linda and Derek…”
“Yes.”
“They planned all of this together.”
“We believe so.”
Mom looked at the prescription.
“But why would a doctor write Derek a prescription?”
“We’re investigating.”
Then the detective pulled out another document.
“This is the part I think you need to see.”
Mom read it.
Her face slowly drained of color.
“What is it?”
She handed it to me.
I didn’t understand most of the legal language.
But one sentence stood out.
Beneficiary designation.
I looked at Mom.
“What does this mean?”
She didn’t answer.
The detective did.
“Derek had taken out a life insurance policy on you.”
My mother stopped breathing.
I stared at her.
“For how much?”
The detective looked at the document.
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Mom whispered:
“He wasn’t trying to steal the apartment.”
She looked at us.
“He was trying to destroy my life.”
And suddenly, the entire plan made sense.
The stolen pills.
The pharmacy records.
Maya’s backpack.
The property deed.
The fake accusations.
The life insurance policy.
Derek didn’t need Mom to leave the apartment.
He needed her to look guilty.
He needed her reputation destroyed.
He needed Maya arrested.
He needed Mom fired.
He needed our family isolated.
And if everything else failed…
