Chapter 4 - The Second Application
The fraud investigator’s voice was calm, professional, and slightly bored. She had heard worse. She took my reference number, confirmed the flag on the second application, and advised me to file a police report if I suspected someone in my household.
I wrote the advice down. Then I opened a new browser tab and began searching for identity-theft affidavit forms.
Downstairs, life continued as if the previous day’s meeting had never happened. Lorraine hummed while she wiped already-clean counters. Trevor’s headset beeped through the guest-room door. Daniel moved between them like a man trying to keep two fires from noticing each other.
I stayed upstairs until the house quieted. Then I walked into the living room with my laptop and sat where everyone could see me.
“I need the router password,” I said.
Daniel looked up from his phone. “Why?”
“Because two loan applications have originated from this network. I am changing the password and enabling logging.”
Lorraine appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You’re treating us like criminals.”
“Someone in this house is acting like one.”
Trevor emerged, hair flattened on one side from the headset. “This is harassment.”
I opened the router admin page on my laptop. The default login still worked. I had never changed it after we moved in. That was my mistake. I changed the password to a long string of random characters, enabled device logging, and then wrote the new password on a sticky note that I folded and put in my pocket.
“From this moment, every device that connects will be logged,” I said. “If another application appears, I will know which device filed it.”
Lorraine’s smile did not waver. “You’re becoming paranoid, Elena. It’s not attractive.”
“I’m becoming precise. There’s a difference.”
Daniel followed me into the kitchen when the others retreated. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes.”
“They’re going to leave soon. Mom promised.”
“She promised temporary two weeks ago. Temporary has a way of becoming permanent when no one enforces an end date.”
He exhaled. “I don’t want to choose.”
“You already did. Every time you asked me to be flexible while they rearranged my life, you chose.”
I left him standing by the sink and returned to the bedroom. The voice-memo app opened itself under my thumb. I recorded the conversation I had just had, word for word, while it was still sharp in my memory.
Later that night I checked the router logs. Three devices were connected: my phone, Daniel’s phone, and a laptop named TREVOR-PC. No unknown devices. The second loan application had been filed before I changed the password. The window of opportunity had closed, but the pattern was clear.
I saved the log screenshot to the Evidence folder and then opened the credit-monitoring app. A new soft inquiry had appeared from a furniture financing company. The timestamp was forty minutes ago—after the password change.
Impossible. Unless someone was using a phone hotspot or a neighbor’s network. Or unless the inquiry had been delayed in reporting.
I stared at the screen until the numbers blurred. Then I added the inquiry to my notes and set a calendar reminder to call the furniture company in the morning.
Sleep came in fragments. At 3:17 a.m. I woke to the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Soft. Careful. They paused outside my door, then continued toward the stairs. I did not get up. I simply pressed record on the voice memo and let the silence capture the fact that someone was moving through my house in the dark.
In the morning the kitchen was empty. A note on the counter in Lorraine’s handwriting: Went to look at apartments. Be back by dinner. Please try to be civil.
I made coffee and checked the router logs again. TREVOR-PC had disconnected at 11:42 p.m. and reconnected at 3:19 a.m. for six minutes. Long enough to check email. Long enough to file something.
I photographed the log, uploaded it, and then drove to the police station on my way to work. The officer who took my report was polite and noncommittal. He gave me a case number and a pamphlet on identity theft. I filed the affidavit online during my lunch break and emailed copies to the credit bureaus.
When I returned home that evening the house smelled of garlic and Lorraine’s rose cream. She and Trevor were at the dining table. Daniel was not.
“Daniel had a late meeting,” Lorraine said. “We saved you a plate.”
I set my bag down. “I’m not hungry.”
Trevor smirked. “Still on the hunger strike?”
I ignored him and walked upstairs. In the bedroom a manila envelope sat on the pillow. No return address. Inside was a single sheet of paper: a printed screenshot of my credit report from three months ago, with my social security number fully visible, and a handwritten note at the bottom—Family shares everything. Or else.
I photographed the envelope, the paper, the note. Then I placed them in a plastic bag and put the bag in the locked drawer of my nightstand where I kept the spare house key and the hammer.
The voice-memo app was already open. I pressed record and described everything I had just found, slowly, carefully, as if dictating a medical chart.
When I finished, I texted Daniel: We need to talk. Tonight. Alone.
He replied twenty minutes later: On my way. Don’t do anything dramatic.
May you like
I looked at the plastic bag in the drawer and at the locked door of my bedroom. Dramatic had already been done to me. I was simply documenting the aftermath.
