Chapter 7: Sit Down or Leave
Lauren did not sit down.
She stayed near the door, her bag pulled tight against her side, her eyes moving between Carrie and the papers on the bed and Grace Holloway's legal pad and back to me.
"She's lying," Lauren said.
"Whatever she told you — she's lying.
Derek let her go because she was accessing files she had no business accessing.
She was caught going through confidential client records."
"She went through the records," I said.
"She found your name.
She found mine.
She found six signed agreements with my signature on them.
I've never seen those agreements before today."
"Those documents were prepared with your knowledge.
Derek spoke to you—"
"Lauren." I kept my voice even.
"Derek has never called me.
Not once in the two years you've been married to him.
I have no record of any communication from Derek about any licensing arrangement.
Julian has reviewed all my business correspondence going back three years."
"Then there was a miscommunication—"
"Three hundred and forty-two thousand dollars," I said.
"That's not a miscommunication."
Lauren's mouth opened.
Closed.
She looked at Carrie again.
Something passed through her face — not remorse, not yet.
More like the rapid, frantic calculation of someone who has just realized the room they're standing in is smaller than they thought.
"This is because of yesterday," she said.
"The will.
You're doing this because you want to punish us for the move."
"Grace," I said, "can you tell my sister what was filed this afternoon?"
Grace looked up from her pad, calm as someone reading a grocery list.
"A civil complaint was filed at two forty-seven this afternoon in the matter of unauthorized use of identity and professional credentials, fraudulent inducement of payment, and wire fraud, naming Derek Hollister as primary respondent and Lauren Hollister as a named party."
Lauren's bag slipped off her shoulder.
She caught the strap before it hit the floor.
"You filed," she said.
She looked at me.
"You already filed."
"An hour ago," I said.
"Miranda." Her voice dropped.
All the performance went out of it.
What was left underneath was something younger, something that almost sounded like the sister I'd grown up with.
"Miranda, Derek doesn't know.
If this goes forward, it will destroy him.
It will destroy us.
The firm, the house we just bought — everything."
"I know," I said.
"Then why—"
"Because three hundred and forty-two thousand dollars went to your husband's firm from people who thought they were paying mine," I said.
"Because my name is on documents I never signed.
Because when I was lying in a hospital bed, you were posting videos.
And then you came here and told me you'd contest the will." I looked at her steadily.
"What exactly did you expect me to do?"
Lauren pressed her fingers to her mouth.
Her eyes went bright.
"I'll pay it back," she said.
"Derek will pay it back.
All of it.
We'll figure it out.
Just — call it off.
Please."
"It's not mine to call off," I said.
"The civil complaint is filed.
The clients have been notified.
Grace will tell you that a settlement negotiation is still possible at this stage, but that's a conversation for your attorney and hers.
Not for you and me in this room."
"Miranda—"
"And Lauren." I stopped.
I made sure she was looking at me, fully, before I said it.
"If you or Derek contact Carrie again, in any form, I will call the DA's office myself and ask them to open a crjminal inquiry."
The room held very still.
Carrie's hands were clasped in her lap.
She wasn't looking at Lauren.
She was looking at the window.
"I want to talk to Mom," Lauren said finally.
"That's between you and Mom," I said.
She left.
This time she didn't look back at the door.
Grace wrote something on her legal pad.
Julian poured water from the pitcher on the nightstand without being asked and set a cup beside my hand.
Carrie let out a breath so slow and so deep it was almost visible.
"Are you all right?" Marisol said from the doorway.
"Yes," I said.
She nodded and left.
I drank the water.
The room was quiet and full of afternoon light.
My ribs ached where they'd been bruised in the accident.
My shoulder throbbed.
I hadn't thought about either injury in hours.
Grace clicked her pen closed.
"I'll need Carrie's statement in writing.
We can do that here if she's willing, or at the office tomorrow."
"Here," Carrie said immediately.
"I'd like to do it today."
Grace nodded.
She tore a clean page from the legal pad and slid it across the bed with the pen.
"Start from the beginning," she said.
"Your name, your role, the date you found the first document."
Carrie picked up the pen.
She held it over the page.
Then she began to write, and the only sound in the room was the scratch of the pen and the slow, steady beeping of the monitor beside my bed.
My phone lit up on the blanket.
My mother's name.
I answered it this time.
"Miranda," she said.
"Lauren just called me." A pause.
"She's at our house.
She's — she's very upset."
"I know," I said.
"Did you really file papers against her?
Against Derek?"
"Yes," I said.
Silence.
Then, very quietly: "Was it as bad as she said?"
I looked at the stack of documents on my bed.
The forged signature.
The email.
*She'll never look.*
"It was worse," I said.
My mother made a sound I had never heard her make before.
Not crying exactly.
Something lower and quieter than that.
Something that had been waiting a long time to come out.
"I'm coming to the hospital," she said.
May you like
"Okay," I said.
"Come alone."
