brushes past the little plastic bag in order to grab the piece of paper. Through the writing on the bag, I see what seems to be a small piece of pink jewelry inside that eerily reminds me of my skull-and-crossbones earrings.
“Is that my earring?” I ask, but the question is ignored and I’m directed once more to read the piece of paper.
“Okay,” I mutter and then unfold the paper one section at a time. My palms are sweating, making the paper damp in my hands. Scanning the white page, I notice some printed computer text right in the center of it. As I begin to read it in my head, my eyes widen with dismay. Another low grumble from my dad takes me away from the note.
“Aloud, please,” he orders.
I take a moment to myself before I read the sentence. Licking my lips, I prepare to face the questions I’m sure to receive after reading this out loud.
“Your daughter is not as innocent as she appears to be, Sheriff.”
I raise my eyes to him and am smacked down by the parental glare. If his tongue was a blade, it would be poking through his cheek right about now. To be honest, even though I know I’m going to die because of this, I’m glad it’s not about the video. Just sayin’.
I try to say something, but I’m stopped short by my father pushing the plastic bag closer to me. “Can you please enlighten me as to why Deputy Samson here received this little item and that note in the wee hours of the morning?”
“I have no ide—”
“Don’t lie to me, Dani. You’ve been doing that plenty lately. That’s your earring in the bag, is it not?” he interrupts me with his thunderous voice.
“Maybe. I don’t know. They were both on my nightstand last night.”
I stop as I become flustered. First, I was toyed with this morning by a video, and now I’m getting grilled by my dad. What a perfect day this has turned out to be. Then a very scary thought suddenly hits me.
This person was in my room. That’s the only way they could’ve taken the earring.
“I want you to be straight with me, Dani. Do you have any idea why someone would send these items to the station?”
I take in a deep breath, feeling overwhelmed. My hands tremble at my sides and a slew of thoughts run through my head. I try to come up with an explanation, but I keep coming back to the unknown person.
“I’ve been getting weird texts from an unknown number ever since the party. I don’t know who this person is, or why they’re doing this, Dad. They probably sent these things,” I blurt out.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” he asks. I can feel the anger in his voice like a flame beside my face. “Let me see your phone.”
I dig into my pocket and remove my cell. Staring at it for a second, I try to remember if there are any incriminating texts from the unknown person, or if they’re all just cryptic.
“The phone,” my dad orders with his hand extended.
I hand it over and my stomach sinks because I can’t remember all the texts that were sent. A lump forms in my throat and my mouth feels like it’s full of sand. I begin to nibble at my fingernails and hear my mom’s voice in my head telling me to stop. She loathes the fact that I chew my nails when I get nervous or stressed, and never passes up an opportunity to remind me of that.
I study my dad’s facial expression as he peruses my phone. It hasn’t changed since the moment he began. The frustrated sigh as he hands it back to me isn’t a good sign.
“Well?” I ask, when he doesn’t say anything.
“There are no messages from an unknown number on your phone, Dani,” he replies, slouching back into the chair. It takes me a moment to fully comprehend what he just said.
“What? That’s impossible,” I reply and immediately start scrolling through my phone’s menu for the message tab. Pressing on it, it reveals he’s right. “This can’t be. Dad, I swear there were messages on here from an unknown number. What teenager would lie about having text messages on their phone? Texting is our life.”
“Dammit, Dani. Can you please be serious and quit lying to me?”
“I’m not lying! Stop saying that,” I say, and realize that probably wasn’t the best tone to respond