The next hour unfolded in pieces. A paramedic wrapped a silver blanket around Nia’s shoulders. A police officer asked her name three times. The puppy, now tucked in a cardboard carrier from the station office, fell asleep with its nose against her fingers. People kept approaching to say she was brave, reckless, lucky. A teenager showed her a video already spreading online, shot from above: Nia dropping down, the train lights growing behind her, Victor’s hand reaching.
In the video, his face was clear.
So was the moment he told her to put the locket down.
Nia watched it once and felt the world tilt.
‘You know him?’ the officer asked.
Nia nodded. ‘My stepfather.’
The officer’s expression tightened. ‘And the necklace?’
‘Locket,’ Nia said.
She took it from her pocket. Her hands had stopped shaking, which frightened her more than shaking would have. She pressed the hinge.
The locket opened.
Inside was not the faded picture of Nia as a baby that she remembered.
Inside was a folded square of thin paper, tucked behind the empty frame.
The officer leaned closer. ‘Can you open it?’
Nia unfolded it carefully. The writing was her mother’s. Slanted, urgent, familiar enough to split her heart.
M, if I do not get to you, give this to Nia. The rest is on the card. Trust no one from the house.
M.
Maribel.
Nia sat down before her knees could give way.
The police officer did not try to take the paper from her. His voice softened. ‘Who is M?’
‘My aunt.’
‘Can you call her?’
Nia took out the receipt with the address. Her phone had five percent battery. Her thumb hovered over the number she had found hidden in an old birthday card three nights earlier.
When Maribel answered, her voice was cautious. ‘Hello?’
Nia could not speak at first.
Then she said, ‘Aunt Maribel, it’s Nia. I found Mom’s locket.’
The silence on the line changed shape.
‘Where are you?’ Maribel asked.
‘Briar Street Station.’
‘Stay with police. Do not leave with Victor. Do you hear me? Do not leave with him.’
Nia closed her eyes.
‘You know,’ she whispered.
Maribel’s breath broke. ‘I’ve been trying to prove it for a year.’
Two hours later, Nia sat in a small interview room at the transit police office with the puppy asleep on her lap, a vending-machine sandwich untouched beside her, and Maribel across the table.
Her aunt looked older than Nia remembered, with rain in her black curls and grief carved deep around her mouth. But when she saw Nia, she crossed the room and pulled her into a hug so fierce the puppy squeaked between them.
‘Sorry,’ Maribel whispered, laughing and crying at once. ‘Sorry, little one.’
For the first time since her mother’s funeral, Nia let herself lean on someone.
Maribel brought a lawyer named Denise Cho, who carried a plain leather bag and spoke in a calm voice that made everyone in the room slow down. The memory card from the puppy’s ribbon was bagged as evidence, then copied under supervision.
When the first file opened on the station computer, Nia gripped the edge of the table.
Her mother’s face appeared on the screen.
June Brooks sat in her car in a parking garage. Her hair was loose,
