Chapter 10 - Lena’s Name
Natalie checked Lena’s credit the next morning.
A six-year-old should not have had a credit file.
Lena did.
There were two inquiries.
One from a retail credit company.
Another from a small online lender.
Both dated within the last year.
Natalie nearly vomited.
She called the lender.
After hours of transfers and identity verification, someone finally confirmed that an application had been submitted using Lena’s Social Security number.
The applicant listed Diane’s address.
Natalie immediately called the police.
Then Rebecca.
Then her attorney.
The lender froze everything.
No loan had been successfully funded.
But the attempt existed.
A child identity theft investigation began.
When detectives questioned Diane, she denied it.
Then claimed she had accidentally entered the wrong Social Security number.
That explanation lasted less than a day.
Investigators recovered a photograph from Diane’s phone.
It showed Lena’s adoption paperwork.
Including her Social Security number.
The picture had been taken while Natalie attended that work conference the previous summer.
The same day Diane photographed Lena beside the electrical panel.
Natalie sat in her attorney’s office staring at the evidence.
“This wasn’t sudden.”
“No,” attorney Claire Morgan said.
“She has been collecting information.”
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
Natalie thought of Diane’s fixation on family.
Real grandchildren.
Blood.
Inheritance.
Money.
Then Claire asked:
“Does Lena have assets?”
Natalie hesitated.
“A college account.”
“How much?”
“About eighty thousand.”
“Anything else?”
Natalie thought of Lena’s adoption subsidy.
Small monthly payments that Natalie had never needed, so she deposited them into a custodial savings account.
Current balance around $31,000.
“About thirty-one thousand in savings.”
Claire nodded.
“Who knows?”
“My mother knew about the college account.”
“How?”
“I mentioned it once.”
“Did she know the institution?”
Natalie’s chest tightened.
“Possibly.”
They checked.
No money had been removed.
But there had been a failed password reset attempt three months earlier.
From an IP address linked to Diane’s home.
Natalie felt something inside her harden permanently.
The CPS report was no longer simply revenge.
Diane had been gathering Lena’s information long before the birthday.
Maybe Lena’s adoption had never been the true source of Diane’s resentment.
Maybe Diane disliked what Lena represented.
Money Natalie chose to spend on someone else.
Attention Natalie gave to someone else.
A future Diane could not control.
That night, Natalie received a voicemail from her mother.
“You’ve turned everyone against me.”
“You’ve frozen my accounts.”
“You’ve embarrassed me.”
Then Diane’s voice softened.
“I made mistakes.”
“But you don’t send your mother to jail.”
Natalie listened twice.
Not one word about Lena.
Not one word about the six-year-old whose identity she had used.
Natalie deleted the voicemail.
Then another message arrived.
From Melissa.
May you like
We found something in Mom’s reunion paperwork.
You need to see this tonight.
