He nodded slowly, like he was building the case in his head. “And you suspect your sister.”

I took a breath. Saying it out loud made it heavier. “Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Do you have the documents from the bank?”

“Not yet. They’re emailing them,” I said. “But I have the delinquency notice and the account number. And I have the property address.”

I handed over the papers. He looked them over carefully, the way people do when they’re searching for the first crack in a story.

“You know,” he said after a moment, “a lot of folks come in here with family stuff and they change their minds later.”

My jaw tightened. “I’m not changing my mind.”

He studied me, and I knew what he saw. Not the kind of person who storms in screaming. Not the kind of person who makes threats and regrets them. I wore plain jeans and a cardigan. My hair was in a low bun because I’d pulled it back when my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I looked like a woman who paid her bills on time.

The officer tapped the paper once. “Do you want to press charges?”

The question hit like a weight on my chest.

There’s a moment, when you’re raised in a certain kind of family, where the word charges doesn’t sound like justice. It sounds like betrayal. It sounds like you’re the one doing something wrong. Like you’re breaking a rule no one ever wrote down but everyone expects you to follow.

Don’t embarrass us.
Don’t make this public.
Don’t ruin her life.

I could already hear my mother’s voice saying it, soft and pleading. My father’s silence behind it. My sister’s outrage, like she was the injured party.

But then I saw the number again in my mind.

$560,000.

The years of my life that number could swallow if I let it.

I thought about my student debt that I’d been chipping away at since I was twenty-two. I thought about the old Honda I’d driven since college. I thought about the nights I’d skipped dinners out so I could pad my emergency fund. The mornings I’d checked my bank balance before I checked my messages, just to make sure I wasn’t about to be surprised by something I couldn’t control.

Cass had taken my control and lit it on fire.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I want to press charges.”

The officer nodded like he’d expected that. “All right,” he said. “We’ll open a case. A detective will contact you. You’ll want to freeze your credit and notify the lender in writing that this is fraud.”