My mother let out a sharp cry, dropping the papers back into the mud. “Natalie! Tell them to stop! You’re destroying this family!”

“The family was destroyed the moment you pulled my credit report to steal my home,” I said, looking down at her from behind the safety of my front door.

The second officer gathered the wet papers from the ground, placing them carefully into a clear evidence bag. Among the pages, the white police bag clearly showed my forged signature at the bottom of a loan application for two hundred thousand dollars—the exact amount remaining on my mortgage. They hadn’t just wanted a place to stay; they had intended to borrow against my hard-earned equity to clear their own longstanding debts and leave me carrying the bill.

Officer Miller walked up to my door and gave a brief knock. “Ms. Hayes, we have enough evidence here to process the forged documents alongside the existing identity theft report. We’ll need you to come down to the station later today to provide a formal supplemental statement.”

“I’ll be there in an hour, Officer,” I said.

“Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”