I took a job bathing a paralyzed billionaire because my children were starving and I had no other choice. I told myself it was only work, only a…
Mr. Bennett looked down.
Then back at me.
“What?”
My knees gave out.
I caught the edge of the sink.
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“What is it?”
I stared at the locket.
There was no possibility of mistake.
I knew the tiny dent near the clasp.
I knew the uneven engraving.
I knew the mark on the back where a child had once scratched a crooked star with the tip of a sewing needle.
I had held that locket in my hands when I was nineteen years old.
It had belonged to my older brother.
Ryan Morgan.
The brother I had buried seventeen years earlier.
Or believed I had buried.
“Where did you get that?” I whispered.
Mr. Bennett’s face became perfectly still.
“Get what?”
“The locket.”
His hand instinctively moved toward it.
I stepped closer.
“That belonged to my brother.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’re mistaken.”
“No.”
My voice broke.
“No, I’m not.”
He closed his shirt.
“Leave.”
“What?”
“I said leave.”
I stared at him.
“Tell me where you got it.”
“Your shift is over.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly.”
His voice sharpened.
“Get out of this room.”
My desperation exploded.
“My brother died seventeen years ago!”
The words echoed through the bathroom.
Mr. Bennett froze.
I could hear my own breathing.
I pressed one hand against the counter.
“His name was Ryan Morgan. He was twenty-four. He disappeared after telling me he had gotten involved with people he shouldn’t have trusted.”
Mr. Bennett’s face drained of color.
“He wore that locket every day.”
Silence.
“It was a gift from our mother before she died.”
Still silence.
“So don’t tell me I’m mistaken.”
