"I see..." I said.

"You know, you could have just asked me instead of doing all of this," Josh said, lecturing me.

 "I didn't think I could trust you, especially since we've only known each other for 2 months only," I explained. "Not to mention, your friend, which I'm assuming is the artist, looked weird"

"I can agree on that, but trust me, he's really friendly. He just doesn't care about his looks much. One thing You should know: Never judge a book by its cover"

"That's what I've been told many times..." I thought.

"Well, you trust me now, don't you?" he asked.

"Yeah, not really"

"You're gonna need time," he said, looking calm and positive.

"But why did you have to pick it up in the middle of the night?" I asked.

"I wanted to make it as secretive as possible so that no one, especially your mother, would find out about the surprise waiting for her as I get the gift. So, me and this guy, we both made a deal to each other that we'd meet at 3 AM so that I'd get the box. I know it might not have been the best idea to do this but, I had no choice"

My mom's husband then put the statue inside the box and left. I sighed in relief, happy to know that my Mom was safe and that the secret that Josh was hiding wasn't anything bad. I knew I had to call my Dad about this and tell him that he doesn't have to know about Josh's secret anymore. I figured that Sabrina was right, what he was hiding wasn't anything bad at all.

I went inside my room and called my father.

"Hey Vicky, are you ok? Did your mom do something?"

"Hi Dad. Yes, I'm ok. How about you?" I answered, not expecting him to be this worried to the point that he had to ask me if my Mom did something.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just working on the case I told you about, the one about Emma Taylor"

"Oh right. By the way, there's something I need to ask"

"Yes? What is it, dear?"

"Today, when I left your house with Mom, I noticed that you took Josh's phone. Why?"

I know that I already discussed this with Mike, but I still decided to ask him, just in case.

"Well, like I told you, I'll take care of it, I'll try to find out myself, I'll take care of Josh's situation with the black box. So, I took his phone to see if I can find any information on his phone," he answered.

"So Mike was right, after all, he did take Josh's phone to find any useful hints on his phone that could help him figure out Josh's secret..." I thought.

"Well, about that..." I spoke.

I eventually explained everything that has happened with Josh just now and the discussion with me and Mike.

"Oh...Mike was already able to put cameras in his office after school and Josh knew about everything, huh," he said.

"Uh-huh"

"Well, that's good. At least no one is in danger now, at least not your mother. And now, I don't have to work on this and try to find out what your Mom's husband is hiding"

"Yeah, I just wanted to let you know," I said.

I looked at the time and said to my Dad

"Alright, I have to go to bed now, it's passed my bedtime"

"Oh ok. Good night"

"Good night"

Then we hung up.

"In that case, I don't have to wake up at night and spy on Josh..." I thought. "I won't even have to look through his stuff in his room or office to find hints"

20th April, 8 AM, Tuesday

While I was peacefully sleeping, I heard my phone alarm waking me up. Personally, I prefer waking up naturally by myself than waking up by force by my phone. It's weird, but when I wake up on my own, I wake up early and I feel energetic. But when my phone wakes me up, even though it wakes me up early, I feel like I want to sleep more, but I can't, unfortunately.

I got up from my bed and did my morning routine. Once I finished, I left my house to take the school bus.

The whole day at school, my classmates and teachers were looking at me and even asking questions about my broken arm. I didn't feel like talking about it, so I eventually ignored them or kindly told them that I didn't want to talk about it or give the shortest answer possible. Also, while taking notes during my classes, I had to use my left hand to write instead of my right as my right arm was wrecked, which was so uncomfortable. My handwriting was so bad, I myself couldn't even read what I wrote.

When it finally hit lunchtime, I sat at the cafeteria table with my best friend and we started talking.

"Hi Vicky"

"Hi Sabrina, how are you?"

"Good. Need a hand?"

"No thanks," I replied, smiling.

Once I sat down, I explained what Josh told me about what was inside the box yesterday, who was the man he was with, and why he had to grab it in the middle of the night.

"I see..." she said "Well, guess I was right when I said that it wasn't a big deal"

"Yeah..." I said.

We talked for a long time until lunchtime was over.

20th April, 4:55 PM, Tuesday

As soon as I got off the bus and arrived home, I threw my school bag on the floor and lay down on the bed. I sighed. It wasn't a comfortable day and I'm well aware that it won't be a comfortable month because of that stupid cast that I have to keep for a month.

After some time, I got up from my bed and grabbed a book and pencil so that I could do my homework. I felt like doing it outside, on the balcony, because the weather looked nice today. Normally, I like studying and working outside when the weather's beautiful.

While walking in the hallways to go outside, I walked past Josh's room and heard him speaking. Curiously, I leaned closer to the door and heard him say things like

"There's more that I need, I need more of this. Ok, where can I go meet you? What's the address? 81246 Street Lilac..."

As soon as I heard this, I immediately opened the book of my homework and started taking notes.

"Ok, I'll meet you there," he continued "At the back of the house? Yeah, sure. At 11 PM? Ok"

I took note of the address, the time when he should be there, and that they'll meet at the back of the house.

Then, I heard silence for a moment. After this, he started walking towards the door of his room. Did he notice me? I backed away as soon as I heard him walk and ran to my room (which isn't really far from his), hiding.

Once he opened his door, he looked around. Then Josh went back on his phone and said

"No, no one's listening...don't worry"

And my stepfather entered back in his room. I guess the person he was talking to asked him if anyone was listening, in which Josh opened the door to check.

"Ok, bye," I heard him, finally.

Then he hung up. I was confused, what is he talking about? Who was he even talking to? What is the thing that he wants more of? Why is he still being secretive? What is the place that he's talking about? And again, why does he have to do it late at night?  I had so many questions.

But then, I noticed something. Dad took Josh's phone, how does he have this one? I figured that it was probably because he bought a new phone, or maybe because he already knew that Dad was going to take his phone, so he had a backup.

Once I noticed that Josh left his room, I sneaked inside and took one of his car keys. Yes, Josh has 3 car keys for the same car and they all have the same design. I decided to take one of them so that I could enter his car at night and spy on him to see what he was up to.

Since I found out what was inside the box was something unharmful, which I assumed was something terrible, I thought to myself that whatever he was talking about must be something less important and not much of a big deal. But curiosity still hit me and I wanted to find out about this.

Little did I know, I was about to discover something shocking...

20th April, 10:30 PM, Tuesday

I went into my room and pretended that I was asleep. After a few minutes, I got up from bed, wore my jacket, and got out of the house from the window. Obviously, it wasn't easy because of my broken arm. After I got out, I found Josh's car.

Now I'm thinking, should I hide inside his car in the truck, or the back seat? I ended up choosing the back seat because if I hid in the trunk, then I wouldn't be able to see anything since everything would be closed and dark. I eventually turned on the car, opened the door of the back seat, and entered inside. Then, I hid under the seats so that I could see something and so that he wouldn't notice me. But I should still be careful not to show myself and not to make noises so that he wouldn't spot me.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps. I knew that it was Josh coming. He eventually came, entered his car, and started driving. While he was driving, I wasn't moving at all so that he wouldn't see me from the rear-view mirror.

After a few minutes, he stopped. He probably arrived at the place he was looking for. As soon as he stopped, I pulled out my phone so that I could start recording a video. Once Josh got out of his car, I got up from hiding under the back seat and began recording him from the window.

As I was taking a video, I saw a random man opening the door. Josh didn't even need to ring the doorbell so that he would open it for him, it seemed like the random man already knew that he arrived.

Also, it was the same man, the same unknown man that I saw when Josh got his black box that night...which was probably the artist that Josh was talking about when he told me that what was inside the box was a statue...

They started talking, and if you're asking, how am I going to able to hear them from outside the window, well, I can hear them, but the voices are very low. To hear them, I should try not to make any noises.

"Hey Phil," said my stepdad.

"Hey Josh, you got the box?" the unknown man, whom I learned his name's Phil, asked.

"Yeah, here it is," said Josh, as he pulled out the same familiar black box and gave it to him.

Then, Phil pulled out something black, I don't even know what it is, and put it inside the box.  The muscular man then closed the box and gave it back to Josh. After my stepfather got his box, he gave him money from his pocket.

"It's 5000$," the guy I don't like said.

"Good. You sure no one else knows about this?"  Phil asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Even if they knew, I'll simply deceive them"

"Really? And how do you plan on doing that?"

He chuckled and responded

"Well, you know that Sonia's daughter witnessed us when I was buying the box from you last Friday. But don't worry, I bought another black box, similar to this one, and put a statue in this, a statue of Sonia."

He smiled mischievously, looking at the black box, and continued

"Let's just say, I half-lied to her. I did go to an art shop and asked the owner to sculpt a statue of Sonia, which I gave him her photo, and he did it perfectly. Then, I put the statue in the other box that is similar to this one, the one I'm holding right now, and showed it to Vicky, to make it look like I bought something simple and that it ain't bad, which she probably thought that it was bad because she doesn't like me, so that she won't try to find out what's really inside the real box and that she won't be involved in our business"

He looked back at his friend, who looked like he was starting to understand his plan, and finished

"I also lied to her, saying that you're the one who made the statue and that we've arranged the meeting for 3 AM because I wanted to make it as secretive as possible so that no one in the family, especially Sonia, would know about this as it's a gift for my wife. We did want to make it secretive, but not because it was a gift for Sonia, isn't that right? I showed Vicky the fake box, the one with the sculpture. Obviously, that's totally not what's supposed to be in the real box"

"Boss told you to do this?"

"Yes. He told me to go to an artist's shop, someone he knows, and told me to do this"

"What about her father, whom she told about this?" asked Phil.

"Don't worry. After I told her that, I heard her call her Dad and tell him that what was in this container was a statue. So, for now, everyone's out of the situation," answered Josh.

"Good. Alright, bye," Phil said.

"Bye"

Then Phil closed the door and Josh walked towards his car, leaving. I hid under the back seat when I saw him walking towards the car. Then, I heard him opening his trunk. I believe that he opened it to put the black box in the trunk. Then, he opened the car door and started driving. Thank god I didn't hide in the trunk of the car, otherwise, he'd spot me right now.

I couldn't believe what I just heard. So all of this wasn't true. What was truly inside the box wasn't the statue...it was something else! He lied about it! What is inside the black box? Why is Josh hiding it?  Also, Phil mentioned the word 'boss' in their conversation. What boss were they talking about? What's their business exactly? What were they talking about?

Once Josh arrived, he got out of the car, locked it, and went inside the house along with the black box. Then, I unlocked the door, sneaked into the house, went into my room, and went to sleep.

To be continued.