Part 3

The second Mom stepped inside, she pointed at me.

“You called the police on your own sister?”

“I called the police on someone who entered my house without permission.”

“She has children!”

“So?”

Mom looked genuinely stunned.

That single word seemed more offensive to her than anything Megan had done.

Dad tried using his familiar peacemaker voice.

“Claire, everybody’s emotional. Why don’t we sit down?”

“No.”

His face tightened.

That was unusual.

Growing up, I almost never told my father no.

I turned toward him.

“Did you make a copy of my house key?”

Silence.

Megan wouldn’t look at him.

Mom answered instead.

“We knew you’d make this difficult.”

That was my confirmation.

Three days earlier, Dad had come over to help me install shelving in the garage. I’d left my keys on the kitchen island while I went upstairs to take a work call. Apparently, he had removed my house key long enough to duplicate it.

I stared at him.

“You copied my key without asking me?”

Dad sighed.

“We were trying to prevent exactly this kind of drama.”

One of the officers raised his eyebrows.

“Sir, taking someone’s key and copying it without permission generally creates more drama, not less.”

Dad’s jaw clenched.

Mom immediately began explaining their plan as if I were the unreasonable one.

Megan’s marriage had collapsed eight months earlier. She’d been renting a townhouse, but she had stopped paying rent after losing her administrative job. Instead of telling me, she had borrowed money from our parents.

Then she stopped paying them back.