…slid something into the corner of the trunk. A slim envelope. White.
Thick. The kind a bank uses when the numbers inside could choke you. My breath snagged.
Because unless the heat was playing tricks on me, unless Tennessee sunlight had suddenly learned to lie, I recognized the handwriting on that envelope. It was mine. The same looping “T” I’d scrawled on the payment I gave Sienna last week.
“For the meds,” she’d said. “Dad’s doctor won’t refill without full payment.”
Hard times. Tight month.
Anything helps. The envelope I’d sealed with my last sixty-three dollars. He tucked it beneath the bags—carefully, like he was arranging gifts.
Then he did something small, but devastating:
He laughed. A low, satisfied laugh, like a man who’d just pulled off a trick and wanted the world to clap. My heart stuttered.
The cashier’s warning sharpened. I pressed further into the shadows, gravel biting through the soles of my shoes. The loading dock air smelled of cardboard, sugar, and something burnt.
A forklift beeped somewhere deeper inside the store. He closed the trunk, patted it once, as if sealing the lie shut, and walked toward the driver’s door. That’s when another figure emerged from the sliding doors—
Sienna.
What happened next changed everything…
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