Chapter 6
Lauren was already at the café when Dana and I arrived. She sat with her back to the wall, hands wrapped around a paper cup she hadn’t touched, her eyes flicking to the door every time it opened.
The place smelled of espresso and wet wool. Outside, snow blurred the traffic on Hennepin Avenue. Dana chose the chair beside me, leaving Lauren across from us.
“You said you knew who uploaded my records,” I said.
Lauren looked down at her cup. “I do.”
“Who?”
“I did.”
The answer landed between us. A spoon clinked against a saucer at the next table, absurdly bright in the quiet that followed.
Dana didn’t reach for her notebook. She let me have the first question.
“Did Brian ask you to do it?”
“Yes.”
“And you did?”
Lauren nodded, though her hands tightened around the cup. “He said he needed household income records for a baby fund. He told me you’d agreed, that you were just too busy to pull everything together yourself.”
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.” She swallowed. “I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds like you scanned my private financial statements and sent them somewhere without asking me.”
“I know.”
I’d imagined Lauren coming in with an explanation that would make the whole thing smaller. A misunderstanding. A mistake she’d caught before it mattered. Instead, she sat across from me looking frightened, and the truth stayed the same size.
“What did you scan?”
“Statements from the office box. The ones Brian brought home. He said he needed the full picture of what the baby would cost.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “I thought it was strange that he wanted everything, but he said it was for planning. He made it sound responsible.”
“Did he tell you where to send them?”
“To his email. Then he asked me to forward them to an address I didn’t recognize.” She rubbed her thumb along the cup’s seam. “That was when I saw the company name.”
Dana leaned in slightly. “What name?”
“North Star Family Holdings.”
I watched Lauren’s face. “And you knew what it was?”
“I knew enough to know it wasn’t a baby fund.” Her voice grew thin. “I’d seen the name on papers around Charles’s office. The statements had your name on them. Your accounts. Your home.”
I felt the old instinct to ask whether she’d tried to stop it, as if the right answer might return the sister-in-law I used to know. Instead, I asked the question that mattered.
“What did you do when you realized?”
“I called Brian.”
“And?”
“He said I was overthinking it. He said it was temporary, and that you’d understand once he explained.” Lauren stared at me. “Then Charles called. He said I had no idea what I was looking at and that I’d better keep my mouth shut.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Her honesty didn’t make the word easier to hear. I looked at the cup between her hands and remembered her at my dinner table, still and silent while I begged Brian to let me go. The café’s warm air suddenly felt close and stale.
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because I saw the messages about you.” Her cheeks flushed. “The way they were talking about you. Like you were the problem. I kept telling myself I was staying out of it, but I wasn’t. I was helping them.”
Dana finally opened her notebook. “Do you still have the emails?”
“I saved them.” Lauren reached into her bag and set a small flash drive on the table. “I didn’t know what to do with them. I was afraid to keep them on my laptop.”
Dana didn’t touch it yet. “What’s on there?”
“The emails Brian sent me. Some of the file attachments. I didn’t change anything.”
“Why didn’t you come forward earlier?” I asked.
Lauren’s eyes shone, but she didn’t look away. “Because I was scared of Charles. And because I didn’t want to admit what I’d done.”
I felt anger rise—hot, clean, and deserved. Beneath it was grief, less clean, because I still wanted her to be someone who would have stood up when I screamed.
“You don’t get to make what you did harmless by being scared,” I said.
“I know.”
“But you can tell the truth now.”
She nodded once. “I will.”
Dana picked up the drive. “I’ll make a copy and preserve the original files. Lauren, I’ll need you to explain when and how you received them. No editing or deleting anything.”
“I understand.”
For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Then Lauren’s phone lit up on the table.
She glanced at it and went pale.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Charles.”
She turned the screen toward me. The message was short.
I know where you are. Leave the drive with me. Don’t make this worse.
A second message appeared before she could lock the phone.
You know what happens when you turn on family.
Lauren’s breath caught. Beyond the window, a man in a dark coat stood near the curb, staring through the glass. A car hissed past, throwing slush against the gutter. When the man shifted, I recognized Charles.
He lifted his phone.
Lauren jerked back from the window.
“Don’t go outside,” Dana said.
Charles lowered his phone and walked out of sight.
My own pulse beat hard in my throat. “Did you tell him you were meeting us?”
“No.” Lauren’s fingers shook around her phone. “He must have followed me.”
Dana slid the flash drive into her pocket. “We’ll leave separately. I’ll take Lauren with me.”
“I can take care of myself,” Lauren said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“You don’t have to prove that right now,” I told her.
She looked at me, startled. I wasn’t forgiving her. I wasn’t ready to trust her. But I wouldn’t let Charles turn her fear into another way to control the room.
Dana unlocked her tablet and opened the copied emails. She scrolled silently, her expression tightening as she read. Lauren leaned closer, then stopped herself, as if she were no longer sure she had the right.
“What?” I asked Dana.
“There’s a thread about timing.”
She turned the tablet so I could see. Brian’s message was brief, written as casually as a grocery list.
How soon after the birth can she sign? I want the appointment booked before she comes home.
My stomach contracted. I pressed one hand to it, waiting for the baby to move. A moment later, a small, firm kick met my palm.
May you like
Dana scrolled to the calendar attachment. An appointment had been penciled in for April 8, three days before my due date.
My name was in the title. So was the word signing.
