Chapter 4: What Lauren Did Next
Nobody left.
That seemed to surprise Lauren more than anything else that had happened in the last ten minutes.
She looked around the room — at Diane, at her husband still standing by the far wall, at the two neighbors who had been there when Emma first pressed that watch — and her jaw tightened.
"Fine," she said.
"Fine.
You want to do this here?
We'll do it here."
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table like she was calling a meeting to order.
She folded her hands in front of her.
She looked, suddenly, like a completely different person — composed, almost pleasant, the way certain people become pleasant when they have decided to fight.
"Diane," she said, "those documents are fabricated.
You know that and I know that.
If you file them anywhere official, I will have my attorney respond within twenty-four hours, and I promise you the response will be thorough."
"Then let them respond," Diane said.
She sat down too.
"I've been waiting eight months.
I can wait a little longer."
Lauren turned to Emma's mom.
"As for you — I understand you're upset.
I understand Emma is upset.
But a recording made by a child on a toy watch, in a private home, is not admissible as evidence of anything.
My attorney will have it excluded before any proceeding gets started."
"It's not a toy," Emma said.
Everyone looked at her.
Emma was still holding her mother's hand.
She hadn't let go.
But she was looking directly at Lauren now, which she hadn't done once since the recording played.
"It's not a toy," Emma said again.
"It has a memory card.
It saves everything.
And it connects to my mom's phone." She paused.
"She got an alert when the recording started.
She has a copy."
Lauren's composure slipped — just for a second, just around the eyes — before she pulled it back.
"Your mother coached you to say that."
"Lauren." Her husband's voice came from across the room.
It was the first time he had spoken since he walked away.
"Stop."
"Daniel—"
"I said stop." He came back to the table.
He didn't sit down.
He stood at the end of it and looked at his wife the way you look at something you thought you recognized and now aren't sure about.
"How long has that account been open?"
"That account doesn't—"
"How long, Lauren?"
She looked at him.
Something passed between them that the rest of us weren't meant to see.
"Twenty-two months," Diane said quietly.
Daniel looked at the USB drive still sitting on the table.
He picked it up again.
This time he put it in his pocket.
"Daniel, give that to me."
"No."
That single word landed like a stone in still water.
Lauren stared at him.
He didn't look away.
"I want to know what's on it," he said.
"And I want to know before any attorney is involved."
"You don't have the right—"
"She works for us," he said.
"Or she did.
Which means if there's fraud connected to this household, it connects to me too." His voice was steady and very cold.
"So yes, Lauren.
I have the right."
Lauren stood up.
"This is a setup.
All of it.
Diane has a grudge, that child has been coached, and you are standing in our home taking the word of strangers over your own wife."
"I'm not taking anyone's word," Daniel said.
"I'm looking at a document with a forged signature and a USB drive full of emails, and I'm asking you a direct question." He waited.
"Did you open an account in her name?"
The silence went on long enough that it became its own answer.
Lauren picked up her phone from the table.
"I'm calling Richard."
Richard, it turned out, was her attorney.
Emma's mom stood up.
"Then I'm calling mine."
Lauren's head turned sharply.
"You don't have an attorney."
"I do now," Emma's mom said.
"I called her this morning.
Before I came here."
That was the moment Lauren's pleasant composure finally broke.
Not loudly — she didn't shout, didn't throw anything.
But her face did something I had not seen it do before.
It went uncertain.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough.
She dialed.
She turned away to speak.
And while she was turned away, Emma leaned close to her mother and whispered something.
Her mother listened.
Then she nodded once, very slowly, and reached into her own bag.
She placed a second envelope on the table.
Diane looked at it.
Then she looked at Emma's mom with a question in her eyes.
"There's more," Emma's mom said simply.
"There's been more for a while.
I just didn't know what I was looking at until today."
She slid the envelope to the center of the table and left it there.
Lauren finished her call.
She turned back around.
Her eyes went straight to the envelope.
May you like
"What is that?" she said.
Nobody answered her.
