Chapter 2 - The Digital Footprint
The silence in the kitchen stretched so thin you could hear the hum of the ruined refrigerator motor. Lorraine recovered her composure first, her face flushing a mottled, angry purple.
"That is property damage!" Lorraine shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the dented handle. "Daniel, look at your wife! She is completely unhinged! She needs psychiatric help, and she needs to pay for a new lock immediately!"
Daniel finally looked up from the sink, his expression a mask of miserable exhaustion. He stepped forward, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "Maya, honey, please. Why do you always have to escalate things? A padlock was a bit extreme, sure, but smashing it with a hammer? You’re scaring my family."
"Your family," I repeated, tasting the bitterness of those two words on my tongue. "They chained my food inside my own house, Daniel. And you stood there watching."
"We were trying to establish boundaries!" Lorraine snapped, stepping between her son and me. "You treat this household like a dictatorship. You work all hours of the night, you bring home foreign documents, you ignore Daniel’s emotional needs, and you expect us to walk on eggshells. Well, no more! Trevor needs a calm environment to prepare for his job interviews."
Trevor lowered his phone, though the red recording light was still blinking. "Yeah, Maya. Some of us actually have stress. You walking in here like a corporate boss is toxic."
I looked at Trevor, taking in his designer sneakers—which he definitely hadn’t bought with his own money—and the faint smell of expensive craft beer wafting from his direction. "Right. Stress. Is that what you call spending your afternoons playing multiplayer games in my home office while browsing luxury cars online?"
Trevor’s face flushed slightly, but he quickly recovered his swagger. "Networking, sis. It’s called market research."
I didn't argue. Arguing with parasites was like wrestling with pigs; you both end up covered in mud, and the pig enjoys it. Instead, I pulled my phone out of my blazer pocket, unlocked the screen, and placed it face-up on the kitchen island, right next to the hammer.
"What is that? Another one of your spreadsheets?" Lorraine scoffed.
"It's a fraud alert," I said evenly. "From my bank. At 1:15 PM today, an online application for a forty-eight-thousand-dollar personal loan was submitted using my credentials."
Daniel blinked, his eyes flickering nervously toward Trevor for a split second before returning to me. "A... a loan? Why would you need a loan?"
"I didn't need one," I replied, watching Daniel's micro-expressions with clinical precision. "Someone else did. And according to the bank’s fraud department, the digital handshake—the IP address and MAC address used to log into my secure banking portal—originated from inside this house. Specifically, from the static IP router assigned to the guest suite and home office."
The color drained entirely from Daniel’s face. Trevor suddenly stopped tapping his phone against his thigh.
"Well, our Wi-Fi is open to everyone!" Trevor blurted out too quickly, his voice pitching up an octave. "Maybe a neighbor hacked us! Or maybe you made it up for attention!"
"The router logs require an administrative password to bypass the firewall encryption," I said, stepping closer to the island. "Only two people in this house have the master admin credentials: me, and the person who set up the network. Which would be you, Daniel. Unless you gave the password to your brother."
Daniel swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. "Maya, that’s... that’s insane. Why would Trevor or I do something like that? That’s a felony."
"It is," I agreed. "That's why I already called Detective Miller at the Seventh Precinct. He’s the financial crimes investigator I worked with on that corporate embezzlement case last year. He ran the preliminary trace before I even walked through the door. He told me that whoever filed the loan application uploaded a forged identity verification document—a utility bill with my name, but linked to a secondary checking account routing number that doesn't belong to me."
Lorraine slammed her palm onto the counter. "How dare you accuse my sons of crimes! You cold, unfeeling corporate witch! You’ve been looking for an excuse to kick my family out since the day we arrived!"
"You're right, Lorraine," I said, turning my back on them and walking toward the stairs. "I have been looking for an excuse. But now, I don't need an excuse. I have evidence."
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"Where do you think you're going?" Daniel called out, his voice cracking with panic. "Maya, stop! Let's talk about this like adults in the living room!"
"I'm going to pack my clothes," I said without looking back. "And by the time I come back down, I expect every single box you own to be sitting on the front lawn."
