Chapter 7 - WHAT THEY FOUND
Lauren called Mom three times that night.
Mom didn’t answer.
That alone felt like a miracle.
James and I took Emma home.
I barely slept.
Every time Emma moved in her crib, I woke up.
At 3:17 a.m., James found me sitting on the nursery floor.
“She’s okay,” he whispered.
“I know.”
But I didn’t know.
Not emotionally.
I kept seeing Lauren’s hand move.
Kept hearing Emma scream.
James sat beside me.
“I should’ve stopped her before she got close.”
I turned sharply.
“No.”
“I saw how she was acting.”
“James.”
“I knew something was off.”
“You were eating dinner. You are not responsible for predicting that my sister would hit an infant.”
His jaw tightened.
“I hate that I missed so much.”
That was the real wound.
Deployment.
Emma’s birth.
Her first smile.
Her first laugh.
He had watched pieces of his daughter’s life through a phone screen.
I took his hand.
“You were where you had to be.”
He looked at Emma.
“And now I’m here.”
At eight the next morning, Dad called.
Police had searched Lauren’s apartment.
They found company documents.
Fake checks.
Three credit cards under other people’s names.
And something else.
A folder marked RACHEL.
My skin went cold.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
James looked at me.
Dad continued.
“Police want you to come down.”
At the station, Daniels handed me photocopies.
My name was on loan applications I had never seen.
My old address.
My Social Security number.
My signature.
Except it wasn’t my signature.
“She stole my identity.”
Daniels nodded.
“Looks that way.”
I flipped through the pages.
A personal loan for eighteen thousand dollars.
Two store credit cards.
A line of credit.
“How long?”
“Some applications go back four years.”
Before Emma.
Before my pregnancy.
Before James’ deployment.
Four years.
James looked furious.
“She planned this?”
Daniels chose his words carefully.
“We don’t know what she planned. We know she repeatedly used your information.”
Then he slid one final document across the table.
I stared at it.
It was a life insurance form.
My name appeared at the top.
But the beneficiary had been changed.
I looked up.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Daniels nodded.
“We thought you’d say that.”
My stomach twisted.
“Who’s the beneficiary?”
He turned the paper around.
I read the name.
And suddenly everything my sister had done stopped looking random.
Because the beneficiary wasn’t James.
May you like
It wasn’t Emma.
It was Lauren.
