Chapter 3 - The ConfrontationWe didn't have to search long for her. Detective Miller tracked her phone to an upscale motel near the interstate.
Michael insisted on coming with me. "You are not going near her alone," he said, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. I didn't argue. The man standing beside me didn't feel like the gentle husband I had married; he felt like a stranger forged in iron and fury.
When the police battered down the door of Motel Room 214, Kara was sitting on the edge of the bed, painting her nails as if she were waiting for a spa appointment.
She didn't look scared when the officers swarmed the room. She didn't look remorseful. When she saw me standing in the doorway behind Detective Miller, she merely sighed, setting the nail polish bottle down on the nightstand with a sharp click.
"Well," Kara said, a bitter, twisted smile touching her lips. "Took you long enough, Emily. I figured Michael would find that stupid memory card sooner, but you guys are slower than I remember."
"How could you?" I screamed, lunging forward, but Michael caught my waist, holding me back. "They raised us! They gave us everything! Mom made you soup when you had the flu just last month!"
Kara rolled her eyes, standing up and smoothing down her designer dress—a dress bought with money she had undoubtedly stolen or borrowed against my parents' future.
"Mom and Dad were living in the past," Kara snapped back, her voice dripping with venom. "They sat on a goldmine while I was drowning. I asked them for a loan—just fifty thousand dollars to clear my slate. You know what they said? They lectured me about financial responsibility. They told me to work harder."
She stepped closer to the police officers, holding out her wrists for the cuffs with sickening nonchalance.
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"So I decided to speed up my inheritance. And honestly? I would have gotten away with it, too, if you hadn't decided to finally be a dutiful daughter for once in your life."
As they dragged her past me, her eyes locked onto mine. "You always ruined everything, Emily. Even now, you couldn't just stay away."
