Chapter 6 - Lauren’s Golden Facade
By noon, the black ice had begun to melt under a weak, pale winter sun, turning the streets of Columbus into a gray slurry of salt and mud. Martin had left Natalie’s apartment an hour earlier, clutching the copies of the county records like a man walking to his own execution. He hadn't known where he was going; he only knew he couldn't go back to Elmwood Drive.
Natalie was sitting at her kitchen island, reviewing an equity portfolio analysis for a client in Cincinnati, when her buzzer rang again.
Three rapid, frantic pulses.
Natalie walked to the intercom on the wall. “Yes?”
“Natalie! Open the door! Open the damn door right now!”
It was Lauren. Her voice was shrill, breathless, and stripped of all its usual polished, melodious charm.
Natalie didn't hesitate. She pressed the release button. “Second floor.”
She left the apartment door unlocked and walked back to the kitchen, leaning against the island with her arms crossed over her chest.
Heavy, stomping footsteps echoed up the wooden staircase, accompanied by the wet squeak of designer leather boots. Lauren burst through the doorway, slamming the door shut behind her so hard the framed botanical prints on the wall rattled.
Lauren looked wild. Her immaculate, honey-blonde blowout was tangled and flat against her head, her mascara was smeared in dark, greasy tracks down her cheeks, and she was wearing an oversized trench coat that she hadn't bothered to button properly over sweatpants.
“You ruined my life!” Lauren screamed, taking three aggressive steps into the living room, her manicured finger thrust toward Natalie’s face. “You psycho! You jealous, vindictive, bitter psycho! You ruined everything!”
Natalie didn't flinch. She didn't shift her weight. She stood entirely still, watching her sister with the clinical curiosity of an entomologist studying a thrashing beetle.
“Good morning, Lauren,” Natalie said evenly. “Take your wet boots off. You’re tracking salt onto the oak.”
“Screw your oak floors!” Lauren shrieked, her voice cracking into a sob. “Richard called off the engagement, Natalie! He called it off! He came to the house this morning with his brother, took the ring off my dresser, and told me his family couldn't associate with ‘common grifters’! Do you hear me?! He called me a grifter!”
“He was remarkably accurate,” Natalie observed coolly.
Lauren’s face contorted into a mask of pure, venomous fury. She lunged forward, her hands clawing the air, but stopped when Natalie didn't even blink.
“I was going to be married in June!” Lauren wailed, dropping onto the edge of the sofa, clutching her head in her hands. “We had the venue reserved at the Scioto Country Club! The deposit was ten thousand dollars! His mother had already arranged for the floral designer from New York! And you… you sent that disgusting, pathetic email to the whole family! Aunt Clara called Richard’s mother! Clara told her that I was a fraud who stole money from old people!”
“You did steal money from old people, Lauren,” Natalie said, her voice dropping into that quiet, terrifyingly measured cadence. “You took five thousand dollars from Aunt Clara and Uncle Greg’s retirement fund under the pretense that you were paying Dad’s mortgage.”
“Mom told me to take it!” Lauren sobbed, her defense instantaneous and childish. “Mom said Clara had plenty of money and that they owed Dad for helping them with their roof twenty years ago! Mom said it was my consulting fee for handling the family’s image!”
“Your consulting fee?” Natalie let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Is that what you call it? What about the seventy-five thousand dollar home equity line of credit that paid for your Audi?”
Lauren’s tears stopped instantly.
Her breath hitched. She froze on the edge of the sofa, her hands slowly dropping from her face. Her eyes darted toward the window, avoiding Natalie’s gaze.
“I… I don't know what you’re talking about,” Lauren stammered, the theatrical outrage instantly replaced by the cornered panic of a child caught stealing from a purse.
“Don't lie to me, Lauren,” Natalie said, stepping away from the island and walking slowly toward her sister. “I’m a financial analyst. I don't guess. I trace. The seventy-five thousand dollars drawn on the home equity line on June 14th of last year was transferred to an account ending in 3319 at Chase Bank. That’s your personal checking account. Three days later, you wrote a check for twenty-two thousand to the Audi dealership in Dublin, and two weeks later, you booked four first-class tickets to Paris for you and your sorority sisters.”
Lauren’s lower lip began to quiver, but it wasn't the trembling of remorse. It was the frantic, calculating vibration of someone realizing the walls were closing in.
“Mom said it was an advance on my inheritance,” Lauren whispered, her voice shrinking. “She said Dad wanted me to have it so I could look the part for Richard’s circle. She said Richard’s friends only marry girls who have status. She said you didn't need an inheritance because you had your corporate job and you didn't care about having a family anyway.”
Natalie stopped two feet from where Lauren sat. She looked down at her sister—this girl she had babysat, this girl whose college essays she had edited, this girl she had protected from Elaine’s screaming rants when they were children.
“And the award, Lauren?” Natalie asked softly. “Was that an advance on your inheritance, too?”
Lauren looked up, her smeared eyes wide with a desperate, pathetic attempt at innocence.
“It was just a joke, Nat! I swear! It was Mom’s idea! Mom said you were acting so superior lately, never coming to Sunday dinners, always acting like you were better than us because you work eighty hours a week! We just wanted to make you laugh! We wanted you to loosen up!”
“You wanted to humiliate me,” Natalie said, the clarity of her words cutting through Lauren’s excuses like a razor. “You sat in that kitchen on Christmas Eve with a glue gun, gluing a plastic cat to a broken bowling trophy, planning to have everyone hold up their phones to record my face when I opened it. You wanted to send the video to your fiancé so he could laugh at your dreary, unmarried older sister.”
“I’m sorry!” Lauren wept, reaching out to grab Natalie’s hand. “I’m sorry, Nat! Please! You have to fix this! You have to call Richard! You have to tell his parents that it was all a misunderstanding! Tell them you gave the money as a gift! Tell them Mom was just confused! If you tell them it was a gift, Richard will come back! His family cares about reputation, Natalie! If they think it was a gift, it won't look like fraud!”
Natalie pulled her hand away smoothly, stepping back out of Lauren’s reach.
She looked at her sister with a detachment so profound that Lauren’s tears froze on her cheeks.
“I will never speak to Richard Van Dorn again in my life,” Natalie said. “And neither will you. Because within forty-eight hours, Richard’s father will have his firm review the public filings, and he will realize that your mother committed wire fraud and bank fraud, and that you were the direct beneficiary of the proceeds.”
Lauren’s mouth fell open. “Fraud? You… you wouldn't report Mom. You wouldn't report me. We’re your family, Natalie!”
“Family?” Natalie tilted her head, her voice dropping into a whisper that felt colder than the Ohio winter outside. “Family is a ledger, Lauren. For thirty-five years, I put deposits into this family. Loyalty. Silence. Protection. One hundred and twelve thousand dollars of my own blood and sweat. And what was my return on investment?”
Natalie reached over to the side table, picked up the empty, red-ribboned box she had used to draft the presentation, and set it gently in Lauren’s lap.
“A plastic cat on a broken trophy,” Natalie said. “Get out of my house, Lauren.”
“Natalie, please—”
May you like
“Get out,” Natalie commanded, her voice dropping into an absolute, terrifying register that brooked no debate. “Before I call the police and have you removed for trespassing. And Lauren? Start looking for an apartment. Because by the end of next month, that house on Elmwood Drive is going on the market.”
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