Chapter 5: Everything She Didn't Know She Knew
The envelope sat in the middle of the table and nobody touched it except Emma's mom, who had placed it there and now sat with her hands in her lap, waiting.
"What is that?" Lauren said again.
"Sit down," Daniel said to his wife.
Not unkindly.
Just firmly.
Lauren sat.
Emma's mom opened the envelope herself.
She took out four pages and laid them flat on the table, side by side, the way you'd lay out a hand of cards you'd been holding for a long time.
"Three months ago," she said, "I started getting calls from a collections agency.
For a credit card I never opened.
I thought it was a mistake.
I called the bank.
They told me the account had been opened eighteen months ago with my name, my address, and my social security number." She pointed to the first page.
"That's the account statement."
Diane leaned forward to look.
Her expression didn't change, but she exhaled slowly through her nose.
"The second page is a loan application.
Same information.
I never applied for a loan." Emma's mom moved to the third page.
"This one took me longer to understand.
It's a rental agreement for a storage unit.
My name is on the lease.
I have never been to that address in my life."
The room was very still.
"And the fourth page," she said, "is a letter from my daughter's school.
Dated six weeks ago.
Saying that her emergency contact information had been updated." She looked up.
"I didn't update it.
Someone changed the emergency contact on my daughter's school file to a name I don't recognize."
Emma hadn't moved.
She was watching her mother the way children watch adults when they sense that something enormous is happening and they are trying to understand how frightened to be.
Lauren's attorney — Richard, apparently — had not yet arrived.
Lauren seemed to be aware of this in a physical way, the way you're aware of a door that hasn't opened yet.
"None of that connects to me," Lauren said.
"The storage unit address," Diane said, "is three blocks from your mother's house."
Lauren's chin came up.
"That's a coincidence."
"The name on the emergency contact form," Emma's mom said, "is Pauline Marsh."
Something happened to Lauren's face.
It was small.
A tightening around the eyes.
A stillness that came from effort rather than calm.
"Who is Pauline Marsh?" Daniel asked.
Nobody answered him immediately.
"She's Lauren's cousin," Diane said.
"They grew up together.
Pauline handles Lauren's personal bookkeeping."
Daniel turned to look at his wife.
"Lauren."
"Don't," Lauren said.
"Is Pauline involved in this?"
"I said don't."
"Because if she is," Daniel said, "and her name is on a child's school record — on our employee's child's school record — then this isn't a misunderstanding.
This isn't a grudge from a former employee.
This is something else entirely, and I need you to tell me right now what it is."
Lauren stood up again.
She walked to the window.
She stood with her back to the room.
Nobody spoke.
Emma's mom gathered her four pages carefully and put them back in the envelope.
It was Emma who broke the silence.
"She wanted to take me," Emma said.
Her voice was very small and very clear.
Her mother turned to her immediately.
"What?"
"I heard her on the phone.
A long time ago.
Before I got the watch." Emma was looking at her hands now.
"She said if she had the right paperwork, she could say you weren't a fit mother.
She said Pauline knew someone who could help." Emma paused.
"I didn't understand all of it.
But I understood that part."
The sound Emma's mom made was not a word.
She pulled Emma against her and held her, and Emma let herself be held, and the room stayed quiet around them in the way rooms do when something has been said that cannot be unsaid.
Lauren turned from the window.
Her face, for the first time, looked tired.
"You don't understand the situation," she said.
Her voice had changed again — flatter now, stripped of the pleasantness and the hardness both.
"You never understood the situation."
"Then explain it to me," Emma's mom said.
Her voice was muffled because her face was still close to Emma's hair.
Then she lifted her head.
"Explain it to me right now.
Because my eight-year-old daughter just told me you were trying to take her away from me, and I would very much like to understand the situation."
Lauren opened her mouth.
The door opened first.
A man walked in — not Richard the attorney.
Someone younger, in a dark jacket, holding a folder.
He looked at Lauren.
"Ms.
Lauren Marsh-Colton?"
Lauren went very still.
May you like
"I'm Detective Reeves," he said.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions."
