At first, I laughed. I remember the sound of it, sharp and confused, echoing in the living room. I said, “That’s ridiculous,” and waited for my parents to laugh too, to tell her to stop playing games. Instead, my mother stared at me as if she were seeing a stranger, and my father’s face hardened into something I had only seen once before, years earlier, when he fired a longtime employee for theft.
“Why would she make something like that up?” my mother asked, her voice trembling.
“Check the bank records,” I said quickly. “Check the cameras. Check anything. You know me.”
Sophie sobbed harder, claiming she had seen me near the safe the night before, claiming I had always resented her because she was more successful, more confident, more everything.
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