Chapter 2 - The Locked Drawer
I caught Diane by the cardigan before she reached the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Get your hands off me!”
Lily started crying again.
That stopped me from escalating it.
I released Diane, scooped Lily into my arms, and stepped between her and the house.
Ryan was still on speaker.
“Claire,” he said, breathing hard, “there’s a locked drawer in the guest room. Mom told me never to touch it.”
Diane shouted toward the phone.
“Ryan, stay out of my things!”
Silence.
Then Ryan said, “Too late.”
Diane went white.
He had come home early from work because I’d texted him that morning about something strange: Lily’s backpack kept disappearing whenever Diane babysat.
I had assumed Diane was reorganizing things.
Now Ryan had found the backpack.
Inside Diane’s locked drawer.
Along with three envelopes.
“What’s in them?” I asked.
“Copies of Lily’s birth certificate. Her Social Security card. Insurance paperwork.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why would she have those?”
“I don’t know.”
Diane suddenly spoke with terrifying calm.
“They’re family documents.”
“They were locked in your drawer,” Ryan snapped.
Then paper rustled through the speaker.
Ryan stopped talking.
“Ryan?”
Nothing.
“Ryan!”
Finally, he whispered, “There’s something else.”
Diane closed her eyes.
“What?”
“A notarized document.”
My grip tightened around Lily.
Ryan read the first line.
It was a petition naming Diane as Lily’s proposed temporary guardian.
My name appeared underneath.
So did a signature that looked exactly like mine.
Except I had never signed it.
Diane stared straight at me.
For the first time since I had known her, the arrogance disappeared from her face.
“You weren’t supposed to find that yet.”
Yet.
May you like
That single word terrified me more than anything else she had said.
👉 The forged signature wasn’t Diane’s entire plan—it was only the paperwork she needed to make the next step look legal.
