“She gave me access before.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You told me your PIN.”
“No.”
“You use the same numbers for everything.”
That sentence landed harder than she seemed to realize.
One officer looked at the other.
I felt the edges of the folder pressing into my fingers.
The bank’s fraud specialist had already explained the pattern to me.
Somebody had not simply found a debit card and guessed once.
There had been repeated access, security questions, attempts to alter contact information, and transfers arranged over multiple days.
Lacy was not describing an accident.
She was explaining familiarity.
I pulled one page from the folder.
It was a printed copy of the bank’s timeline.
I did not hand it to Lacy.
I handed it to the officer.
“The attempt to add the backup email happened first,” I said.
“Then the transfers started.”
Lacy’s jaw tightened.
Diane looked at her.
“What email?”
I almost turned toward my mother, because that sounded like genuine surprise.
Almost.
But I had spent too many years responding to every flicker of concern as if it erased everything that came before it.
The officer asked Lacy whether the backup address was hers.
She folded her arms.
“I have a lot of emails.”
“It has your name in it,” I said.
“That proves nothing.”
“Maybe not by itself.”
I reached into the folder again.
The next page was the digital receipt connected to the boutique studio deposit.
Lacy saw the logo at the top and immediately looked away.
That reaction told Diane more than I ever could.
“What did you do?” my mother whispered.
Lacy snapped toward her.
“Don’t start.”
“I asked what you did.”
“I was starting a business.”
“With Paige’s money?”
Lacy threw both hands into the air.
“She wasn’t doing anything with it!”
There it was again.
Not denial.
Justification.
The officers separated the questions from the shouting.
They asked about the studio deposit, the account access, the transfers, and whether Lacy had permission from me.
Each time she tried to circle back to family.
Family money.
Family house.
Family helps each other.
Finally, I said, “If it was family money, why didn’t you ask me?”
Lacy looked at me.
For once, she had no fast answer.
“Why did you need my PIN?” I continued.
