My parents called at 1 A.M. screaming, “Wire $20,000—your brother’s in the ER!” I asked one question… and they dodged it. So I said, “Call your favorite daughter,” hung up, and went back to sleep. The next morning… police were at my door.

“We’re following up on a report of an attempted wire fraud using a spoofed call impersonating your phone numbers,” she said, eyes moving from my mother to my father to Mark to Emily. “The call claimed Mark Wilson was in the emergency room and demanded twenty thousand dollars.”

My mother’s mouth opened. No sound came out at first. Then she found one, too bright, too fast.

“That’s ridiculous,” she laughed, but it was brittle. “Mark’s been right here.”

Mark lifted his mug slightly like proof. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Emily hugged her own arms, mascara smudged beneath her eyes like she’d cried earlier and forgotten to fix it. Or hadn’t had time.

My dad cleared his throat and tried to step forward into authority, like he could take control of this the way he takes control of conversations at Thanksgiving.

“Officer,” he said, “we don’t know anything about—”

Green held up a hand, polite but stopping him like a barrier. “We have the call log, the spoofed number, and the text message with wire instructions. We also have a response identifying the account holder name as Emily Wilson.”

Emily flinched like she’d been hit.

My mother turned her head so fast her earrings swung. “Emily?”