Chapter 5
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
“What do you mean he used my name?”
Trevor exhaled shakily.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“Dad opened something.”
“What?”
“A credit line.”
My chest tightened.
“In my name?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“Paige, calm down.”
That phrase nearly made me scream.
“Do not tell me to calm down.”
“Okay.”
“When?”
“Maybe four years ago.”
Four years.
I was in college.
Working nights.
Watching every dollar.
“How did you find out?”
Trevor hesitated.
“I saw paperwork.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“And you never told me?”
“I thought Dad handled it.”
I stood from my desk at home.
“Handled what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m telling you what I know!”
His voice cracked.
For the first time, Trevor sounded less like my arrogant brother and more like somebody afraid.
“What kind of paperwork?”
“A card.”
“What card?”
“Some business credit account with your name.”
“My business?”
“No.”
“Then why my name?”
“I don’t know!”
I closed my eyes.
I needed facts.
Not emotion.
The accountant in me took over.
“Send me everything you remember.”
“What?”
“Bank name. Logos. Dates. Anything.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Then write down what you remember.”
He went quiet.
“Are you going to call the police?”
“If someone committed fraud using my identity?”
“Yes.
“I might.”
“Dad could get in trouble.”
I almost laughed.
“So that’s your concern?”
“He’s our father.”
“And I’m your sister.”
Silence.
“You knew for a year.”
Trevor whispered,
“I’m sorry.”
It was the first genuine apology I could remember hearing from him.
I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Send me the information.”
I hung up.
Then I pulled my credit reports.
My hands were shaking before the pages loaded.
At first, nothing looked wrong.
Mortgage.
Student loan history.
Two credit cards I recognized.
Then I saw it.
An old business line of credit.
Opened four years earlier.
Closed eighteen months later.
Maximum balance: $18,700.
I stared at the screen.
I had never opened it.
The address attached to the account was my parents’ house.
I felt cold all over.
I called the bank.
After forty minutes of verification, I reached a fraud specialist.
“I did not open this account.”
She asked questions.
Date of birth.
Social Security number.
Old addresses.
Then she said something that made my stomach twist.
“The application appears to have been submitted in person.”
“In person?”
“Yes.”
“With identification?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“There is also a co-applicant.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Thomas Holloway.”
My father.
I stopped breathing.
“How?”
“I can’t determine that from this screen.”
“I need copies.”
She explained the fraud process.
I wrote everything down automatically.
Case numbers.
Departments.
Deadlines.
Documentation.
My mind functioned while my heart broke.
The next call was to a lawyer.
Not Daniel Price.
This wasn’t his field.
Professor Hart recommended an attorney named Rebecca Sloan.
She specialized in financial fraud.
I met her the following afternoon.
She reviewed the credit report and listened without interrupting.
Then she said,
“If your signature was forged, this could be identity theft.”
“My father did it.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“He’s the co-applicant.”
“That suggests involvement.”
I appreciated her precision.
“What happens now?”
“We obtain the application.”
“And if the signature isn’t mine?”
“We report it.”
“To police?”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
Rebecca noticed.
“You look uncomfortable.”
“He’s my father.”
“That doesn’t change what happened.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked away.
Maybe not yet.
Three days later, the bank sent the application.
I knew immediately.
The signature was fake.
Close.
But wrong.
The loops were too wide.
The middle initial was shaped differently.
More importantly, I had been working at the restaurant on the date the account was opened.
Clocked in.
Six hours away from the branch.
Rebecca pointed to another page.
The ID copy.
My driver’s license.
An old one.
I remembered losing it during college.
Mom said she found it months later.
Apparently, she had found it sooner than she admitted.
Then came the security-camera still.
My father at the bank.
Standing beside a woman.
My mother.
I stared at the image until Rebecca gently covered it.
“Paige.”
“They both knew.”
“Yes.”
“What was the money used for?”
“We requested statements.”
Those arrived next.
Payments to Trevor’s debts.
Transfers into my parents’ account.
One withdrawal for $6,000.
The exact month I called Dad begging for tuition assistance.
I sat in Rebecca’s office and cried.
Not loudly.
Just quietly.
“I was working doubles.”
She waited.
“I sold my computer.”
I laughed through tears.
“They were using credit in my name while telling me they couldn’t help.”
Rebecca passed me a tissue.
“You need to decide whether to file a report.”
“Will they be arrested?”
“Possibly.”
I looked at the documents.
“Do I have another option?”
“You could pursue civil remedies.”
“And the debt?”
“It was paid and closed, but the fraudulent account remains part of your financial history.”
“My mortgage lender saw this.”
“Probably.”
I remembered my interest rate.
Slightly higher than expected.
The loan officer had mentioned my credit profile had an unusual older business account.
I thought it was a reporting mistake.
My parents’ fraud may have cost me thousands over the life of my mortgage.
I felt sick.
That evening, Mom and Dad showed up together.
I had not invited them.
I opened the door but kept the chain attached.
Dad looked exhausted.
Mom looked terrified.
“You found out.”
Not a question.
“Yes.”
Mom started crying.
“Paige, please let us explain.”
“You opened credit in my name.”
Dad stepped forward.
“We paid it back.”
I laughed.
“So theft is okay if you repay it?”
“It wasn’t theft.”
“What would you call it?”
“We needed temporary credit.”
“Then use your names.”
“We couldn’t qualify.”
There it was.
“You couldn’t qualify, so you used me.”
Mom wiped her face.
“We never missed a payment.”
“You forged my signature.”
“We were going to tell you.”
“When?”
Silence.
“When, Mom?”
Dad interrupted.
“It helped the family.”
“No.”
My voice hardened.
“It helped Trevor.”
“That’s not fair.”
I held up the statements.
“I have the numbers.”
Dad’s face changed.
He knew arguing with me about records was pointless.
Then Mom whispered,
“Please don’t go to the police.”
For years, I had imagined hearing my parents admit they needed me.
I thought it might feel powerful.
It didn’t.
It felt empty.
“Leave.”
“Paige.”
“Leave.”
Dad’s face reddened.
“If you report this, you could destroy us.”
I looked at him through the narrow opening.
“You used my identity without my permission.”
My voice shook.
“You don’t get to make me responsible for what happens when the truth comes out.”
They left.
I closed the door.
Then I called Rebecca.
“I’m filing the report.”
The following morning, police opened an investigation.
By afternoon, my mother called me from Aunt Melissa’s phone.
I answered once.
She was sobbing.
“Paige, your father could lose everything.”
I stared around the little house I had built without them.
Then I said,
“I almost lost things too.”
“What things?”
“My future.”
She went silent.
I ended the call.
Two weeks later, Trevor appeared on my porch.
He looked terrible.
“Can I come in?”
I hesitated.
Then stepped aside.
He sat at my kitchen table.
For once, he didn’t look around judging my house.
He looked at his hands.
“I knew more than I told you.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much more?”
He swallowed.
“Dad didn’t open one account in your name.”
I froze.
May you like
Trevor looked at me.
“There were three.”
