Chapter 60: Lies Leave Fingerprints

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Leya's Room – Morning, Just After the Accusation

She still clutched the note in her fingers, but the fire it had ignited in her chest now raged in her.

Vivian's warning—"Return the necklace and no further action will be taken"—was a challenge, not a threat.

And Leya no longer ran from a challenge.

She did not touch the pearls.

Not because she was afraid of them, but because she did not need to touch them. Not to touch them. Not to defile them.

As she was.

She rolled away from the bed and tugged at the edges of her bedspread—slowly, miserably—searching the wrinkles. No smear on the wooden floor. No drawer pulled from the square. No hair ruffled.

A clever burglar.

An inside job.

Someone who knew she was too vain to scream, too polite-tongued to yell.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the page she’d started earlier. The one labeled:

> Theft – Set-Up, Phase One

Now she added beneath it:

> Intent: Humiliation, control, narrative hijacking.

Suspect: Eleanor.