Chương 11
“What did he do?”
“He walked me through it.”
“Did he type anything himself?”
Ava paused.
“Sometimes.”
“On whose device?”
“My laptop.”
“Where is the laptop now?”
“At home.”
Deputy Harris looked at Mom.
“Do you live together?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Do not alter, reset, discard, or sell that computer.”
Ava looked alarmed.
“I wouldn’t.”
“I’m telling you because people panic and clean things up.”
Ava lowered her eyes.
“I understand.”
The deputy continued through the documents.
There were printouts from three lenders.
A spreadsheet listing account balances.
Copies of two voided checks from Mom’s account.
A page of handwritten passwords.
Mom recognized several of them.
Her email.
Her bank.
Her cell provider.
She sat down.
“Oh my God.”
Ava leaned toward the page.
“I didn’t write that.”
Deputy Harris looked at her.
“You recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
Mom did.
Her face changed.
“That’s not Ava’s.”
She pointed from a distance.
“Ava makes her sevens with a line through them.”
Ava looked at her mother.
The smallest, strangest expression passed between them.
Even now, Mom knew how her daughter wrote a seven.
Deputy Harris photographed the page.
“Do you recognize anyone else’s handwriting?”
Ava stared.
“No.”
Then she said, “Maybe.”
Everyone looked at her.
She swallowed.
“Mason writes in all caps.”
The password sheet was written entirely in block capitals.
Deputy Harris did not react.
“Have you seen his handwriting before?”
“He wrote notes for me.”
“Do you have any of those notes?”
“At home.”
“Keep them.”
He moved to the next document.
Ava suddenly stood.
“Wait.”
Deputy Harris stopped.
She pointed toward a folded page near the bottom of the case.
“That wasn’t there before.”
He looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because the papers in that folder were mine.”
Her voice became strained.
“I put them together yesterday.”
“What is the page?”
“I don’t know.”
He unfolded it.
It was a vehicle purchase agreement.
My vehicle purchase agreement.
I stepped forward before I caught myself.
Grandpa’s face hardened.
Deputy Harris looked at me.
“Is this yours?”
“I think so.”
The document showed the SUV’s VIN.
My full name.
Grandpa’s name as purchaser.
The dealership.
The purchase price.
At the bottom was a photocopy of my driver’s license.
My stomach turned.
“I never gave Ava that.”
Everyone looked at her.
She shook her head violently.
“I didn’t have it.”
Mom stared at the paper.
“Where would he get Amelia’s license?”
Ava looked terrified.
“I don’t know.”
I thought about the SUV.
The glove compartment.
The temporary registration packet.
The insurance card.
The documents I had barely looked at because I had only driven the car one day.
“Was there a copy in the vehicle paperwork?”
Grandpa looked at me.
“There may have been.”
Deputy Harris asked, “Was the glove compartment locked?”
“No.”
“Who had physical access to the vehicle?”
Ava whispered, “Mason.”
More than once, apparently.
The Fort Mill apartment.
The long stops.
The remote account.
The black case.
The papers.
I felt anger return, but it had changed direction.
Not away from Ava.
Not entirely.
She had made choices.
Bad ones.
Dishonest ones.
But the shape of those choices was beginning to look different.
Deputy Harris lifted another page.
It was an application form.
The lender name was unfamiliar.
The applicant name was mine.
I could not breathe for a second.
Grandpa’s cane struck the floor once.
The deputy looked at me.
“Did you apply for a loan using this vehicle as collateral?”
“No.”
Ava covered her mouth.
Mom whispered my name.
I stared at the signature line.
Someone had typed Amelia Carter.
Under income, the application listed an annual salary almost exactly equal to mine.
Not rounded.
Not guessed.
Exact.
Deputy Harris looked at me.
“Who knows what you make?”
My eyes went to Mom.
She looked horrified.
“I do.”
Ava whispered, “I do too.”
I turned toward her.
“How?”
She swallowed.
“You left a pay stub on the printer last month.”
I felt suddenly cold.
Deputy Harris pointed toward the date on the application.
It had been submitted four days ago.
While I was taking Uber to work.
While Ava was driving my SUV.
While Mom was telling me her sister needed it more.
The deputy turned another page.
This one showed the requested amount.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
The collateral description matched my SUV.
The application status was not marked approved.
It was marked pending verification.
A phone number was listed beneath my name.
It was not mine.
Ava stared at it.
Then she whispered, “That’s Mason’s number.”
Nobody spoke.
Deputy Harris carefully placed the document back on the counter.
Grandpa looked at Ava.
His anger was still there.
So was something else now.
Fear.
Not for the SUV.
For how close all of us had come to never noticing.
I looked toward the dark window above the sink.
My reflection stared back at me, pale and rigid.
Two weeks earlier, I had thought the worst thing my family could do with my birthday present was give it away.
Now I understood that someone had been trying to turn it into debt in my name.
And they had almost succeeded.
Deputy Harris asked for my phone number and email before anyone moved from the kitchen.
He wrote both down, then asked me to open the credit-monitoring app I already had installed through my bank.
I had barely used it.
The score on the screen looked normal.
That should have reassured me.
It did not.
“Pending applications don’t always show immediately,” he said.
I stared at the numbers anyway.
Grandpa stood beside me.
“What should she do tonight?”
“Freeze her credit with the bureaus.”
Mom looked at him.
“All three?”
“Yes.”
Ava whispered, “Mine too?”
Deputy Harris glanced at her.
“Definitely yours.”
He looked toward Mom.
“And yours.”
Mom nodded.
She had stopped arguing with instructions.
That frightened me almost as much as everything else.
May you like
Deputy Harris photographed the outside of the black case, the papers inside, and the SUV.
He asked me to walk him around the vehicle.
