The company was called Laurel Crest Consulting.
I had never heard my father say those words together.
Neither had Megan.
Daniel Mercer gave me several minutes to absorb the registration documents before continuing.
The company had been formed fourteen months earlier.
Organizer: Thomas Hale.
Mailing address: a post-office box outside Asheville.
Registered agent: Daniel Price.
The name meant nothing to me.
"Who is Daniel Price?" I asked.
"We were hoping you might know."
"I don't."
"Your sister?"
"I don't know who she knows anymore."
Mercer nodded once.
"Fair."
I called Dad.
He answered from home.
"Are you with Mom?"
"Yes."
"Put me on speaker."
A moment later, I asked, "Have you ever heard of Laurel Crest Consulting?"
Silence.
Then Dad said, "No."
Mercer watched my face.
"Have you ever registered an LLC?"
"No."
"Ever used a post-office box near Asheville?"
"No."
"Do you know anyone named Daniel Price?"
Dad paused.
That pause was different.
"Maybe."
My heartbeat quickened.
"Maybe how?"
"I knew a Dan Price years ago."
"When?"
"Through Brooke."
Mercer straightened.
"How?"
Dad explained that three years earlier Brooke had dated a man named Daniel. He had worked in automotive finance or insurance—Dad wasn't sure which. The relationship lasted less than six months.
"Last name Price?"
"I think so."
"What happened to him?"
"They broke up."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Mom spoke in the background.
"Brooke said he stole from her."
Dad corrected her.
"No. She said he used her card."
Mom responded sharply.
"That's stealing."
I looked at Mercer.
He wrote something.
"Do you have a photo?" I asked.
Mom said she might.
"Find it."
Mercer took the phone next.
"Mr. Hale, I need you to verify whether you've ever signed business-formation paperwork."
"No."
"Do you use electronic-signature software?"
"Not that I know of."
"Has your daughter Brooke ever helped you with taxes, retirement accounts, or banking?"
Dad became quiet.
"Yes."
My stomach tightened.
"How much access?" Mercer asked.
"She helped me set up online banking last year."
"Did she know your password?"
"At the time."
"Security questions?"
"Probably."
Mercer looked at me.
There it was again.
Access.
Not sophisticated hacking.
Familiarity.
The easiest breaches often came through trust.
After Mercer ended the call, he opened another document.
The ninety-thousand-dollar loan in Mom's name had funded Laurel Crest Consulting.
From there, money moved through several smaller transfers.
One landed in Brooke's account.
Another paid a landlord.
Another paid a credit-card company.
The rest disappeared through accounts Mercer had not fully identified.
"How much reached Brooke directly?"
"About twenty-one thousand."
"Where did the rest go?"
"That's what we're tracing."
Megan asked, "Could Daniel Price control Laurel Crest?"
"Possible."
"Could Brooke?"
"Also possible."
"What about Thomas Hale?"
Mercer looked at me before answering.
"We have no evidence your father knowingly created the company."
Knowingly.
The word mattered.
I hated it anyway.
At eight forty, Mom sent a photograph.
Brooke stood beside a dark-haired man outside a brewery.
Mercer examined it.
"We have a likely match."
"To what?"
"Driver's-license records."
"So that's Daniel Price?"
"Appears to be."
"Where is he?"
"Last known residence is outside Hendersonville."
I looked at the registration address again.
"How far from the post-office box?"
"About twenty minutes."
I stood.
"Then let's go."
Mercer shook his head.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because this isn't a family argument anymore."
"I understand that."
"I'm not convinced you do."
His tone irritated me because it was correct.
He closed the folder.
"Do not approach Price."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Preserve records. Freeze accounts. Let us investigate."
"I did that overnight."
"Good."
"Someone broke into my garage."
His expression changed.
"When?"
I told him.
Then showed him the report number.
He immediately called the sheriff's department.
While he spoke, Megan and I exchanged looks.
Things had accelerated beyond anything either of us could control.
By noon, Holt Ridge's attorney, Rachel Pierce, arrived.
Rachel had represented me since the company was barely more than a desk and a stack of invoices.
She hugged me once, then spent three hours saying very calm things that made the situation sound even more serious.
Identity theft.
Corporate impersonation.
Fraudulent authorization.
Possible conspiracy.
Evidence preservation.
She also told me not to confront Brooke.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because you're going to ignore it."
"I haven't."
"Yet."
"I'm learning restraint."
Rachel looked at Megan.
"Is that true?"
"No."
"Excellent."
Despite everything, I laughed.
It lasted two seconds.
Rachel reviewed the forged authorization.
"This template is ours."
I looked up.
"What?"
"Old version. We stopped using it six years ago."
"Could Brooke have found it online?"
"No."
"Then how did she get it?"
Rachel turned the page over.
"It could've come from one of your old files."
The stolen garage records.
Or the folder that disappeared years earlier.
"Would my mother ever have appeared on this form?"
"No."
"Could somebody alter an old form?"
"Obviously."
"Could they make it look real?"
"They already did."
She checked the metadata.
"Nine months ago."
"That's what I found."
Rachel's jaw tightened.
"Miranda, who had physical access to your early corporate files?"
"Me. You. My accountant. Maybe Brooke."
"Maybe?"
"She lived with me during that period."
Rachel stopped turning pages.
"For how long?"
"Four months."
"Did she ever help with filing?"
"Occasionally."
"What kind?"
"Scanning. Mail. Whatever I needed."
Megan sat back.
"So she may not have stolen everything later."
I looked at her.
"She could've copied it then."
Rachel nodded.
"Exactly."
That possibility changed the timeline.
Brooke may have spent years carrying information she only later learned how to use.
At three, Dad arrived with Mom.
Neither looked like they'd slept.
Mom hugged me.
I allowed it.
Dad put an old laptop on the table.
"This was Brooke's."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"She left it at our house last year."
"Does it work?"
"I think so."
"Why do you still have it?"
"She bought a new one and told us to recycle that one."
Rachel immediately held up a hand.
"Nobody opens it."
Dad blinked.
"Why?"
"Because if it contains evidence, we don't contaminate it."
Mom sat down.
"I used it after she stopped."
Rachel looked sharply at her.
"For what?"
"Email. Recipes."
"Did Brooke know?"
"I don't know."
The laptop suddenly looked less useful and more complicated.
Mercer returned for it an hour later.
Before taking it, he asked my parents several questions separately.
I sat in the living room and listened to the low murmur from the kitchen without trying to hear words.
Megan joined me.
"You okay?"
"No."
"Useful answer."
"I've spent years thinking my biggest family problem was being ignored."
"And now?"
"I miss when that was the problem."
She didn't tell me it would be fine.
Again, one of the reasons I loved her.
At five thirty, Mercer asked to speak with all of us.
He placed Brooke's old laptop in an evidence bag.
"We found something during an external drive preview."
Rachel frowned.
"I thought you weren't opening it here."
"We didn't. The drive was attached inside the case."
Dad looked confused.
"What drive?"
"A small storage device taped beneath the battery housing."
My skin prickled.
"What was on it?"
"Encrypted files."
"Can you read them?"
"Some."
"What kind?"
"Scans of identification documents."
Nobody moved.
"Whose?" Rachel asked.
Mercer looked first at Mom.
Then Dad.
Then me.
"All three of you."
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad swore quietly.
I felt strangely calm.
Maybe fear had reached its limit.
"Anything else?"
"Bank screenshots."
"Mine?"
"Some."
"Company?"
"Yes."
"How old?"
"Several years."
Rachel whispered, "Jesus."
Mercer continued.
"There are also photographs of handwritten notes."
"What notes?"
"Passwords. Security questions. PIN fragments."
Mom began crying.
"I wrote things down."
Dad turned toward her.
"What?"
"On paper."
"Where?"
"In the desk."
"You kept bank passwords in the desk?"
"I didn't think—"
Dad stopped himself.
Not because he wasn't angry.
Because none of us could pretend carelessness caused what someone else deliberately did.
Mercer placed one final sheet on the table.
It showed a file directory.
One folder name stood out.
MIRANDA.
Inside it were subfolders labeled BANK, HOLT, SIGNATURES, EMAIL, TAX.
Another folder was labeled MOM.
Another DAD.
And one more.
PRICE.
"Daniel?" I asked.
"Likely."
"What does that contain?"
"That's what we're examining."
Mom whispered, "Brooke did all this?"
Mercer answered carefully.
"The device was hidden in a laptop associated with her. That's strong evidence. It is not yet proof she created every file."
Rachel nodded.
Correctly cautious.
Dad wasn't interested in caution.
"She had copies of our identities hidden in her computer."
Mercer didn't argue.
Mom stood.
"I need to talk to her."
"No," three people said at once.
She sat again.
My phone buzzed.
Brooke.
For one terrible second, I thought she somehow knew we were discussing her.
Her message read:
Tell Dad to stop talking to strangers.
I showed Mercer.
His face changed.
"Don't respond."
Then another message arrived.
And another.
She wrote that Daniel was dangerous.
That we didn't understand what we'd started.
That if I wanted the truth, I needed to meet her alone.
Rachel said, "Absolutely not."
I didn't answer.
Brooke sent an address.
It wasn't hers.
I searched it.
An abandoned roadside motel twenty miles south.
Megan stared at me.
"No."
"I know."
Brooke's final message appeared.
Bring the envelope. No police. Ask Dad what happened the last time Daniel Price came to the house.
Every person in the room turned toward my father.
He had gone white.
Mom looked at him.
"What is she talking about?"
Dad didn't answer.
I stood.
"Dad."
He looked at the floor.
"The last time Daniel came to our house," he said slowly, "I gave him money."
My mother stared at him.
"How much?"
Dad raised his eyes.
"Fifty thousand dollars."
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Dad’s Secret Payment Exposed the First Time Someone Had Tried to Buy Their Way Out of Brooke’s Trouble
My Parents Canceled Christmas With One Short Message, and I Finally Stopped Asking Them to Choose Me
Part 6 of 40
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