Marjorie’s triumphant, smug smile faltered instantly. She uncrossed her arms, stepping back slightly, exchanging a confused, nervous glance with my father.
“Are you hysterical?” Marjorie demanded, her voice rising in pitch. “Stop laughing! You have nothing now! We destroyed it!”
I wiped a tear from my eye, struggling to catch my breath. I pointed a shaking finger at the smoking ashes in the fire pit.
“Mom,” I wheezed, leaning forward, resting my hands on my knees as another wave of laughter hit me. “Mom, the state lottery commission doesn’t just mail a two-and-a-half-million-dollar live check to your house like a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon!”
Leon frowned deeply, his thick eyebrows knitting together. He lowered the barbecue tongs. “What do you mean? It came in a big envelope! It had your name on it! It said ‘Pay to the Order of Maya Vance’ right on the front!”
I stood up straight, the laughter finally fading, replaced by a cold, hard, razor-sharp smile that I had never worn before in my life.
“I know it did, Dad,” I said, my voice dropping into a deadly calm. “Because the check you just burned was actually…”
Chapter 3: The Decoy and the Vault
“…a promotional sweepstakes mailer from the Honda dealership downtown,” I finished, staring directly into my father’s confused eyes. “It literally said ‘You could be a winner’ in the microscopic fine print at the bottom. It was an advertisement to get me to come in and test drive a Civic. I left it on the kitchen counter when I visited two weeks ago, and you must have thrown it in the mail pile.”
Leon stared down at the ashes in the fire pit, his jaw dropping open. The tongs clattered onto the concrete patio.
