Chapter 9 - THE MISSING FORTY THOUSAND
Lauren had taken forty thousand dollars from my mother.
Not borrowed.
Taken.
Mom had transferred it willingly.
But Lauren had lied about why she needed it.
She had shown them business plans.
Invoices.
A lease agreement.
Projected revenue.
All fake.
Dad discovered the money had gone toward credit card debt and online gambling.
The revelation had nothing directly to do with Emma.
But it explained why Lauren had become desperate.
My father had finally refused to give her more money three weeks before Christmas.
Mom had secretly continued helping her.
Lauren arrived at dinner already angry.
Already resentful.
Already looking for someone to blame.
I hated the explanation.
Because explanations can sound dangerously close to excuses.
James made the distinction clear.
“Understanding why someone is unstable doesn’t mean accepting what they do.”
Dad hired a financial attorney.
He separated several accounts.
Mom canceled a credit card Lauren had been using.
They changed passwords.
For the first time in more than a decade, Lauren encountered a locked door.
Her response was immediate.
She called me.
I didn’t answer.
She called again.
Then again.
Finally, she left a voicemail.
“You happy now?”
Her voice shook with fury.
“You turned them against me.”
“You got James involved.”
“You got police involved.”
“You took my parents.”
I listened without responding.
Then came the sentence that revealed everything.
“You always take everything.”
I replayed it.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I finally heard what lived underneath all those years of competition.
Lauren believed love was something stolen.
If I received praise, she lost.
If I got married, she lost.
If I became a mother, she lost.
If our parents celebrated me, she experienced it as rejection.
Emma had not created Lauren’s resentment.
She had simply become its newest target.
Two nights later, Megan called again.
“I found the messages.”
She sent screenshots from three years earlier.
Messages between herself and my mother.
Mom begging her not to “destroy Lauren’s life.”
Dad offering to pay for Tyler’s counseling.
Lauren never apologizing.
Then Megan sent one message I had never seen.
It was from Lauren.
Maybe if you taught your kid not to act like a brat, other people wouldn’t have to.
I stared at it.
Three years old.
Same language.
Same justification.
Different child.
James read it beside me.
“That matters.”
“For what?”
“Pattern.”
We forwarded it to the investigator.
The next day, Lauren’s complaint against James was formally dismissed.
The command found no misconduct.
For the first time since Christmas, I felt relief.
It lasted less than an hour.
Then Lauren appeared at our front door.
I saw her through the security camera.
She was crying.
No makeup.
No coat despite the freezing weather.
She pressed the doorbell repeatedly.
“Rachel.”
“Please.”
“I need to see you.”
James wasn’t home.
Emma was upstairs napping.
I didn’t open the door.
“Go away, Lauren.”
Her head snapped toward the camera.
“You’re seriously afraid of me?”
“I’m protecting my daughter.”
“I would never hurt Emma.”
My hands went cold.
“You already did.”
Lauren’s face changed.
The tears disappeared.
Then she stepped closer to the camera.
“Open this door.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what Mom did either.”
I froze.
“What are you talking about?”
Lauren smiled.
May you like
And with that one smile, I knew she had come carrying another secret.
“One you’re going to wish you never found out.”
