In Larissa’s trembling hand was a folded photograph and a small brass key. She stared at the photo first, and her face drained of every ounce of color. It showed Marcus, two years earlier, at a hotel check-in desk, his arm around a woman who was very clearly not me, and very clearly not Larissa. A different woman entirely. On the back, in my own handwriting, was a date and a room number. I had found it in his coat pocket the night I first suspected him, and I had tucked it into my mother’s dress, the one place I knew he would never look, and then almost forgotten it in the chaos.
But it was the brass key that made Marcus go rigid. Larissa held it up, confused, demanding to know what it opened. I answered before Marcus could. “It’s the key to a storage unit,” I said calmly, loud enough for the party to hear. “The one where he keeps everything he hides from the women in his life. Including, I’d guess, whatever he’s hiding from you.” Larissa turned to Marcus, and for the first time all night, the smile that had mocked me across three weeks of stolen clothes was gone.
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