Chapter 3

Seeing me admit fault, Belinda smiled, satisfied.

"Well, at least there's hope for you yet, knowing when to own up to your problems."

"From now on, put your back into the work here. Stop looking to get something for nothing every single day."

I smiled and said calmly,

"Don't worry. It won't happen again."

My daughter shot me a surprised look but said nothing.

It was her husband who jumped in, unable to wait.

"Mom, since you won't come eat with us, you go clean up the kitchen, then close out and lock up for the night."

"Anna and I are taking my mother out for a late bite."

I nodded. "All right."

With that, I turned and walked straight into the kitchen.

As I stepped inside, I could still faintly hear Belinda grumbling out front.

"Anna, your mother really has no sense at all."

"So we fined her twenty grand, big deal. Who's she putting on that sour face for, right in front of the staff?"

"She's the one who did wrong first, and she's got it looking like we're the ones mistreating her."

My daughter sighed, unbothered.

"That's just how she is. Don't stoop to her level."

Belinda said nothing more.

But Clyde still wasn't easy about it. He suddenly dropped his voice.

"So we're just leaving, like that?"

"What if your mom's in here alone and helps herself to something again?"

At that, my daughter answered right away.

"Relax. We've got twenty-four-hour cameras everywhere in the place."

"I go back through the footage every day. Whether she's taken anything or not, I know exactly."

Hearing that, I smiled.

No wonder that the day I first came to help out, my daughter had rushed to get cameras installed in every corner of the place.

So it had been to guard against me all along.

What made it more laughable was this. She already knew from the footage that in three years here I had never taken a single thing, and yet she'd let Belinda's smears stand, joining right in to pin a thief's name on me.

This was my daughter.

The good daughter I had poured everything into loving.