The Daughter They Didn’t Want Won The Lottery Chapter 10
The three of them tore up the town.
Dad drove. Mom rode shotgun, calling out places. Chloe was in the back scrolling through her contacts, dialing every classmate she could remember.
Chick-fil-A. The library. The Starbucks on Main. The parking lot behind the movie theater.
The sun dropped. Streetlights came on. Nothing.
Mom finally lost it in a gas station parking lot, phone shaking in her hand. “I’m calling 911. My daughter is missing. And there’s five hundred thousand dollars missing with her. Somebody has to do something.”
Meanwhile, two blocks away, Liam stood in his bedroom, phone in a white-knuckled grip.
He’d read my last message more than twenty times.
The fireworks at Disney are beautiful. Don’t worry about me being part of your life anymore.
He’d called. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. T
ext after text. Not delivered.
Instagram, email—blocked, all of it.
Then his phone rang, and it was Chloe, sobbing into the receiver. “Liam—Emma’s gone. She won the lottery and she took the money and she’s gone, Mom’s calling the cops—”
Liam sank onto the edge of his bed.
His fingers slowly tightened around the phone.
The cracked-screen phone. The Chick-fil-A tray. I didn’t take it.
She’d been telling the truth. She’d had money the whole time. She just hadn’t wanted to say.
And that last message wasn’t a fight.
It was a goodbye.
He put his face in his hands.
The police took the report, but there wasn’t much they could do. I was nineteen and had left on my own.
Three days later, everything pointed back to Roosevelt High.
Ms. Hayes was at her desk grading summer packets when the door flew open.
A whole procession poured in.
Mom in front, red-eyed. Dad pale behind her. Chloe on her arm, sniffling. Liam at the very back, head down, silent. Two officers with them.
Ms. Hayes’ pen paused.
“…Can I help you?”
Mom lunged to the desk. “Ms. Hayes—Emma’s gone. She won five hundred thousand dollars on a scratch-off and she just took off without a word. Has she called? Has she come by? Anything?”
Ms. Hayes set her pen down. Looked at all of them. Was quiet for a long moment.
Then, gently: “Emma isn’t missing. She’s in London.”
The office went still.
“What?” Mom’s voice went sharp. “London? What do you mean, London?”
Ms. Hayes reached into a drawer, pulled out a slim folder, slid it across the desk.
“Emma enrolled in a four-year undergraduate program in London. Tuition and living expenses come to about forty thousand dollars a year. She told me money wasn’t a concern and asked me to push the paperwork through fast.”
She paused.
“Her flight left five days ago. She’s on the other side of the Atlantic by now. I assumed you knew. What’s going on?”
Mom stood very still. The color drained from her face. She swayed, caught the edge of the desk, sank into a chair.
Chloe stopped crying. Just stared.
Dad’s throat worked. “The—the money—”
Ms. Hayes’ voice went level. Cool.
“Emma asked me to pass along a message. She said—there was never anyone in that house who treated her like family, so she’s stopped treating herself like part of it. She won the money. What she does with it is not your business.”
The office went dead quiet.
Outside, someone was mowing the football field. The drone drifted in through the closed window, long and mindless.
Mom sagged in the plastic chair. Her lips trembled. No tears came. Just fury.
Chloe stared at the folder. “But… I was supposed to be the one to go abroad.”
Liam stood at the very back. He slowly lifted his head, looked at the folder on Ms. Hayes’ desk. My name typed neatly at the top. A city thousands of miles from everything he’d ever known.
He finally understood.
I wasn’t his anymore. I wasn’t theirs anymore.
I was gone.