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Marcus stepped into the dining room, his six-foot-two frame filling the archway. My boyfriend of three years looked calm, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. He’d been waiting in the kitchen, listening, ready to intervene if things got physical.
“Who the hell are you?” my father demanded, apparently finding his authoritative voice when confronted with a stranger.
I pulled out my tablet from my bag, swiping to the security app.
“Would you like to see last Tuesday, Lauren?” I asked. “When you used the spare key you didn’t know I knew about to enter my old bedroom?”
The screen flickered to life, showing crystal-clear footage of Lauren sneaking into the house at two in the afternoon. The timestamp was prominent in the corner as she made her way to my childhood bedroom—the one I’d stayed in during my brief visits over the years.
“That’s an invasion of privacy!” Lauren shrieked, but her protest died as we watched her on screen methodically going through my belongings.
The video showed her opening my jewelry box—the one Grandmother Eleanor had given me for my eighteenth birthday. Lauren’s fingers sorted through the contents, pocketing several pieces, including the pearl necklace Eleanor had worn on her wedding day.
“Those pearls,” my mother gasped. “Mother said she lost them years ago.”
“She didn’t lose them,” I said quietly. “She gave them to me the day before she died. Said she wanted someone who understood their value to have them, not someone who would just see dollar signs.”
We continued watching as video-Lauren moved to my closet, pulling out the designer dress I’d bought for my company’s annual gala. She held it up to herself, then deliberately took scissors from my desk and cut a long gash down the back.
“That was a fifteen-hundred-dollar dress,” I said conversationally. “I had to attend the gala in a borrowed outfit because someone destroyed mine out of spite.”
But Lauren wasn’t done. In the video, she moved to my desk, where I’d left some work documents during my last visit. Her face lit up as she photographed them with her phone, page by page.
“Those were confidential client files,” I explained, “which you then tried to use to poach my clients—calling them and claiming I was about to be fired for misconduct. Fortunately, my clients trusted me enough to call me directly.”
My parents were staring at the screen in horror. This wasn’t the daughter they’d coddled and protected all these years. This was someone capable of calculated cruelty.
“There’s more,” Marcus said, switching to a different file. “This is from three weeks ago.”
The new footage showed my parents sitting in this very dining room with Lauren, their heads bent together conspiratorially.
“We need at least fifty thousand,” Lauren was saying in the recording. “If we can convince Jenna that Mom needs surgery, she’ll wire the money immediately. She’s always been soft about medical stuff.”
“Tell her I need a kidney transplant. That should get us a hundred thousand at least. We can say the insurance won’t cover it.”
“Brilliant,” my father agreed on the recording. “She won’t even question it. Too guilty about being a ‘bad daughter’ to verify anything.”
I paused the video, looking at my parents’ stricken faces.
“You were going to fake a kidney transplant to steal money from me.”
“It wasn’t stealing,” my mother protested weakly. “We were going to pay you back.”
“With what money?” I asked. “The inheritance you thought you were getting from Grandmother Eleanor? The same inheritance you just watched Lauren forfeit by assaulting me?”
Marcus pulled up another file.
“This one’s my personal favorite,” he said. “Last Sunday’s brunch with the neighbors.”
The video showed a backyard gathering, Lauren holding court with about fifteen neighbors. Her voice carried clearly across the recording.
“Poor Jenna’s really gone off the deep end,” Lauren was saying, shaking her head sadly. “We found her talking to herself in the garden at three a.m. last week. The doctors think it might be schizophrenia. We’re looking into having her committed for her own safety.”
Mrs. Patterson’s voice cut through.
“That’s funny, because I saw Jenna leaving for her business trip to New York that morning. Her Uber picked her up at 4:30 a.m. for a 6:00 flight.”
Lauren’s face in the video showed a flash of annoyance before smoothing back into fake concern.
“She must have snuck back. The delusions make her very cunning.”
