Part 3: The Empty Bible
I stood there holding my Bible open in both hands, staring at the empty page where I'd tucked the ticket the night before, and my brain just refused to process it. I flipped through every page. I shook the whole Bible upside down. I pulled the shelf away from the wall and checked behind it. I tore my bedroom apart — mattress off the frame, drawers emptied onto the floor, closet ransacked. Nothing.
My first thought, and I'll be honest about this, was that I'd imagined it. That the win hadn't been real. That I'd dreamed the whole thing. But then I grabbed my phone, and there were the photos: front of the ticket, my signature on the back in blue ink, EMILY THORNTON, timestamped 8:47 PM, geotagged Corner Mart, Tupelo.
It was real. And it was gone.
I called Melissa with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. She picked up on the fourth ring, and before I could say a word she said, "Em? What's wrong? You sound terrible."
"The ticket," I said. "Mel, the ticket is gone. It was in my Bible and now it's gone. Did you — did you move it? Did you take it to keep it safe?"
Silence. A long, cold silence.
Then: "Emily. What are you saying to me right now?"
"I'm asking if you moved it! I'm not accusing you, I'm just — it's gone, Mel, and you were the only other person in my apartment—"
"Are you actually accusing your own sister of stealing from you?" Her voice went sharp, then cracked. "I came over to celebrate with you. I slept on your couch. And now you're calling me a thief?"
"I'm not calling you anything! I'm panicking! Two point four million dollars is missing from my apartment and I don't know—"
"Check your car," she snapped. "Check your purse. You were half-asleep when you put it away, you probably stuck it somewhere and forgot. God, Emily."
She hung up on me.
I stood in the middle of my destroyed bedroom and cried. Then I called Carla at the diner and told her I was sick, and I spent the entire day searching that apartment inch by inch. I checked the trash. I checked Noah's room. I checked the laundry. I called the Corner Mart and asked to speak to Marcus, but the manager said Marcus had called in sick.
By evening, Melissa texted me: "I'm sorry I snapped. I'm sure it'll turn up. Check under the couch cushions lol."
It didn't turn up. Not that night. Not the next day. Not the day after that.
On the third day, I drove to the Corner Mart in person. A different clerk was working. I asked if they'd had any winning tickets claimed recently, trying to sound casual, and the girl behind the counter said, "Oh yeah, somebody won big on one of the Mississippi Millions tickets this week. Two point four million. It was on the news."
My blood went cold. "Do they know who won?"
"The lottery office hasn't released the name yet," she said. "They never do right away."
I drove home and sat in my car in the parking lot and stared at my phone. Then I opened Facebook, because I don't know why, because some instinct told me to look.
The first post on my feed was from Melissa.
It was a photo of her standing in front of a giant ceremonial check, the kind the lottery office gives you for the cameras. The check said $2,400,000.00. Melissa was grinning, holding it with both hands, wearing a new blazer I'd never seen before.
The caption read: "GOD IS GOOD!!! WE WON!!! $2.4 MILLION!!! New chapter, new life!!! #blessed #lotterywinner"
Posted fourteen minutes ago.
My sister had claimed MY ticket.
