For several seconds, neither Lara nor I spoke.
I could hear sirens approaching her street, the faint rustle of cardboard, and her breathing becoming shallower.
“Lara?” I said.
“Whose name is on the card?”
Her answer came so quietly that I almost missed it.
“Mine.”
I sat down on the edge of my bed.
“What?”
“The credit card is in my name, Valeria.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Lara read the name again, as if saying it twice might change the letters embossed into the plastic.
It didn’t.
Then she gave me the billing address.
My address.
My apartment in Lincoln Park.
For ten months, Emmett had slept beside me, eaten food I bought, complained about bills I paid, and apparently used my home as an address for a credit account opened in another woman’s name.
“I never applied for this,” Lara said.
I stared at the dark doorway of my bedroom.
“Don’t touch anything else more than you already have.”
“I already opened the box.”
“That’s fine.
Just keep everything together.
The police are coming, right?”
“They’re turning onto the street now.”
I heard car doors outside her house.
Then Lara said, “There are applications with your name too.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.
Bank forms.
Loan forms, I think.
There are copies of your driver’s license and something with your Social Security number partially covered.”
That frightened me more than the affair ever could.
Emmett cheating could destroy a relationship.
Emmett having enough of my personal information to impersonate me could follow me for years.
“Take pictures of nothing yet,” I told her.
“Give the papers to the officers and tell them exactly where they came from.”
A hard knock sounded somewhere near her phone.
Lara whispered, “They’re here.”
Then I heard a man’s voice outside, another responding, and the quick professional rhythm of people taking control of a scene.
Lara told me she would call back.
Before she disconnected, I asked one question.
“Is Emmett conscious?”
“No.”
I looked at the time.
3:07 AM.
Less than eight hours earlier, I had been chopping vegetables for him.
Now police were standing beside his belongings while another woman held a credit card in her name registered to my home.
I didn’t go back to bed.
I opened my laptop at the kitchen table and began checking everything I could safely access: bank accounts, credit card accounts, recent alerts, email confirmations, anything unfamiliar.
At first, I found nothing.
That almost made it worse.
Because if Emmett had been careful, I didn’t know where to look.
At 3:39, Lara called again.
Her voice was steadier.
“The paramedics are checking him.
The officers want to speak with you.”
She handed the phone over.
I explained that the boxes had come from my apartment, that I had packed what I believed were Emmett’s belongings after he told me he was staying with Lara, and that I had no idea my jewelry or identification documents were inside.
“Did you knowingly put those documents in the boxes?” the officer asked.
“No.”
“Did you give him permission to possess copies of your identification?”
“No.”
“Did you give him permission to take or pawn your jewelry?”
My throat tightened.
“No.”
That answer hurt differently.
The jewelry wasn’t expensive because of stones or gold.
It
