Chapter 3 - The Money in My Name
For a few seconds, I couldn’t hear anything except my own breathing.
Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
The amount was not enormous by the standards of fraud cases I had heard about.
But it was enormous to me at twenty-two.
More important, the date on the check was three weeks after I shipped out.
“What is this?”
My mother sat down again.
My father said, “A misunderstanding.”
Sheriff Mercer looked at him.
“Forgery usually isn’t a misunderstanding.”
“You don’t know it was forged.”
I handed the check to Mercer.
“That is not my signature.”
My father laughed nervously.
“You signed lots of documents before you left.”
“I know how I sign my name.”
Nathan removed more papers from the box.
“Claire, look at this.”
An account statement.
My name.
An account number I didn’t recognize.
Deposits.
Withdrawals.
Transfers.
The opening date was two days after I left for basic training.
I felt as if the floor had shifted.
“Whose account is this?”
My father spoke through clenched teeth.
“It was established for you.”
“By who?”
“Your mother and me.”
“Without telling me?”
“You were inaccessible.”
“I was at basic training, not on Mars.”
“You needed someone handling things.”
“What things?”
He looked away.
Nathan handed me another document.
A loan.
My name appeared again.
Then another.
A credit line.
Then a business registration.
I stared.
“Miller Strategic Holdings?”
Nathan nodded grimly.
“Your father created it.”
“With my name?”
“As part owner.”
My father exploded.
“It was temporary!”
Sheriff Mercer raised a hand.
“Stop talking.”
My father looked at him.
“What?”
“Until you have an attorney.”
“You’re acting like I’ve committed a crime.”
Mercer glanced at the forged signature.
“I’m saying you should consider counsel.”
My mother started crying harder.
My father turned on her.
“This is your fault.”
I stood.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“This is yours.”
His mouth opened.
I held up the check.
“You used my name.”
He scoffed.
“You don’t know the circumstances.”
“Then explain them.”
He said nothing.
I pulled more papers from the box.
The pattern emerged quickly.
My father’s consulting firm had been struggling around the time I enlisted.
I hadn’t known.
He had hidden it.
The company borrowed money.
Then borrowed more.
Then apparently created a second entity using my identity.
My excellent credit score.
My clean financial history.
My signatures forged.
My personal information available because he was my father.
“Twenty-eight thousand wasn’t the only amount.”
Nathan pointed to a statement.
My stomach dropped.
Transfers totaling almost ninety thousand dollars.
Not all in one place.
Small enough to hide.
Large enough to matter.
My father finally spoke.
“The company was in trouble.”
“So you stole my identity?”
“I was going to pay it back.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“I did pay some back.”
“While telling the town I was a felon.”
His eyes flashed.
“You don’t understand business.”
I laughed.
“There’s the line.”
“What?”
“The excuse you’ve been waiting to use.”
“Claire—”
“No. Say it.”
I stepped toward him.
“Tell me I’m too young to understand. Tell me you knew what was best. Tell me everything you did was for the family.”
He stared.
I nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Sheriff Mercer took the documents.
“We need to secure these.”
My father said, “You can’t take them.”
“They appear to belong to Claire.”
“They’re in my house.”
I looked at Mercer.
“You can have copies.”
My father turned toward me.
“You’re really doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Turning your own father over to the police?”
“I just came home and found out my father told an entire town I was in prison while using my identity to borrow money.”
“You weren’t supposed to come back like this.”
That sentence stopped everyone.
I looked at him.
“Like what?”
He realized his mistake.
I stepped closer.
“In uniform?”
Silence.
“You weren’t supposed to come back where people could see me.”
“No.”
“Then how?”
My mother whispered, “Tom…”
He ignored her.
“You were supposed to call first.”
“I did.”
His face changed.
“I called three times this week.”
My mother looked at him.
“You said she hadn’t.”
He stared at her.
I took out my phone.
“Tuesday. Wednesday. Friday.”
My mother’s mouth opened.
“No calls came through.”
I looked toward my father.
“Did you block my number?”
He said nothing.
Nathan cursed under his breath.
I checked my mother’s phone.
My number was blocked.
She stared at the screen.
“I didn’t do that.”
I believed her.
For the first time, I believed something she said immediately.
My father stepped backward.
“This has gotten completely out of control.”
“No,” I said. “It’s finally under control.”
Sheriff Mercer called another deputy upstairs.
He instructed him to photograph the room.
My father protested.
My mother said, “Let them.”
He looked at her like she had betrayed him.
Maybe she had.
Or maybe she had finally stopped betraying me.
Nathan sat beside me.
“There’s more.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
He handed me the old phone from the lockbox.
“I found this six months ago.”
“Whose is it?”
“Your father’s old phone.”
My father snapped.
“You went through my property?”
Nathan ignored him.
“There are messages.”
“What messages?”
“Between your father and someone named Richard Vale.”
That name landed strangely.
I knew it.
“Vale Financial?”
Nathan nodded.
Vale Financial was one of my father’s competitors.
Richard Vale had once been his business partner before some ugly falling-out when I was in high school.
“What were they talking about?”
Nathan looked toward Sheriff Mercer.
“Claire’s identity.”
My father shouted, “That’s enough!”
Mercer stepped between us again.
Nathan unlocked the phone.
Apparently he had guessed the old passcode.
My birthday.
A cruel little irony.
He opened the messages.
Most were years old.
Richard:
Need confirmation she’s unavailable.
Dad:
She’s gone for at least four years.
Richard:
Prison?
Dad:
That’s what people believe.
My hands went numb.
Richard:
Good. Less chance of questions.
I looked up.
My father had gone pale.
“What did you do?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing you understand.”
“Stop saying that.”
The next message.
Richard:
Use the authorization we discussed. If anyone asks, she signed before sentencing.
Dad:
Fine.
My stomach turned.
Before sentencing.
He had weaponized his own lie.
He had used the fictional prison sentence as an explanation for why I couldn’t personally appear during financial transactions.
Sheriff Mercer read silently.
“This is potentially much bigger.”
My father said, “Those messages are out of context.”
“What context makes them legal?” I asked.
He had no answer.
Outside, the crowd was still gathering.
We could hear muffled voices through the windows.
The news crew.
Neighbors.
Everyone.
My father looked toward the curtains.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want you showing up.”
I stared at him.
“Because your fraud would be exposed?”
“Because people destroy things they don’t understand.”
“People didn’t destroy this.”
I pointed at him.
“You did.”
My mother suddenly stood.
“I knew about the first account.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She pressed both hands together.
“Only the first.”
The words came quickly now.
“Your father said he needed to move money temporarily. He said you had signed permission before leaving.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“When did you find out?”
Her eyes filled.
“Two years ago.”
“And you stayed.”
She nodded.
I wanted to be furious.
Part of me was.
But another part saw a woman who had spent years being controlled through shame and fear.
Still, fear did not erase responsibility.
“What did you do when you found out?”
“I confronted him.”
“And?”
“He told me if I exposed it, you could be investigated too.”
I stared.
“For fraud committed using my stolen identity?”
“He said the documents would make it look like you were involved.”
My father muttered, “It was possible.”
Mercer said, “That’s not how this works.”
My mother looked at me.
“I believed him.”
I sat down.
It was too much to hold standing.
Nathan rested a hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t push it away.
Outside, someone knocked loudly on the front door.
A deputy went downstairs.
We heard voices.
The reporter.
Then another.
Then shouting.
Sheriff Mercer looked at his radio.
“What now?”
A deputy’s voice came through.
“Sheriff, we’ve got a man outside saying he’s Richard Vale.”
Every person in the room went still.
My father whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Mercer raised the radio.
“Keep him outside.”
But my father suddenly moved.
He rushed toward the hallway.
The sheriff grabbed him.
“Where are you going?”
My father struggled.
“You don’t understand.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be here.”
I stared at him.
Then we heard shouting downstairs.
A door slammed.
Someone yelled.
Nathan looked out the window.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned toward me.
“Vale has a folder.”
“So?”
May you like
Nathan swallowed.
“Your name is written across it.”
