Evidence backed up.
Money protected.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of my parents anymore.
I was afraid of freedom.
Then my mother screamed across the terminal.
“There she is!”
Brenda and Richard charged toward me with airport police following close behind.
“She stole from us!” Richard shouted. “She’s fleeing the country!”
A security officer stepped in front of me.
Then Officer David Rollins approached.
Two years earlier, I had catered a memorial banquet for Customs and Border Protection after another company backed out at the last minute. Richard took the credit. I did almost all the cooking.
At the end of the night, Officer Rollins walked past my father and shook my hand instead.
“You walked into disaster,” he’d told me, “and delivered perfection.”
Now he stood in the airport staring at me while my parents tried turning him into a weapon.
“Miss Cook,” he said carefully. “What’s happening here?”
Brenda rushed forward immediately.
“She’s unstable,” she cried. “She stole from our company!”
Rollins looked unimpressed.
“And you are?”
“Her mother.”
