Chapter 15 - WHAT THEY DID TO SKYLAR
There are certain kinds of anger that burn hot.
Then there is the kind that turns cold.
The moment I learned someone had opened credit using my eleven-year-old daughter’s identity, I stopped feeling shocked.
I became precise.
The account had been created eight months earlier.
A business credit line.
Maximum limit: $75,000.
The listed business was Skylark Home Design.
The owner was supposedly Skylar Mercer.
Age eleven.
Obviously, no legitimate review should have approved it.
Alan Pierce’s involvement explained how basic safeguards had been bypassed.
Only $18,000 had been drawn.
The money went to HLM Media.
Hailey’s company.
My daughter’s stolen identity had funded my sister-in-law’s lifestyle.
I thought about the videos Hailey posted.
Hotel pools.
Handbags.
Restaurant booths.
Captions about building her dream.
Skylar had unknowingly paid for part of that dream.
Rebecca helped me freeze Skylar’s credit immediately and create formal identity-theft reports.
Then I told Brandon.
For once, he did not defend anyone.
He stared at the paperwork.
“No.”
“It’s real.”
“Mom wouldn’t use Skylar.”
“She already did.”
“No.”
He kept shaking his head.
Then I showed him the account.
His face collapsed.
“This wasn’t part of what she told me.”
I had no sympathy left for selective ignorance.
“You helped her get access.”
“I never gave her Skylar’s Social Security number.”
“You gave her access to our files.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that as if not asking questions makes you innocent.”
He started crying.
I had seen Brandon cry only twice.
When Skylar was born.
And when his grandfather died.
I felt nothing.
That frightened me more than his tears.
He called Hailey while sitting across from me.
She answered.
“Brandon?”
“Did you use Skylar’s identity?”
Silence.
“Hailey.”
“I didn’t know Mom used her number.”
“You received the money.”
“She said it was from the trust.”
“What trust?”
“The one for Skylar.”
Brandon stared at me.
“How much did you take?”
Hailey started crying.
“Mom said Charlotte had plenty.”
That sentence.
Again.
Charlotte had plenty.
As though having something meant anyone was entitled to take it.
“How much?”
“Eighteen thousand.”
Brandon hung up.
He sat perfectly still.
Then he said:
“I’ll testify.”
I looked at him.
“Against your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Against Hailey?”
His jaw trembled.
“Yes.”
“Against yourself?”
That one hurt.
I saw it.
But finally, after months of cowardice and years of entitlement, Brandon said the only answer that mattered.
May you like
“Yes.”
And that was when Gertrude’s empire began to collapse.
