Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Stole My Name
By seven the next morning, my inbox was a disaster.
Thirty-six customers had contacted me about orders I couldn't find.
Some had paid through my real website.
Others had purchased dresses through the imitation store.
One woman had ordered five hundred dollars' worth of clothing for her daughter's bridal shower.
Another was a retired schoolteacher who had saved for a new outfit to attend her grandson's wedding.
Every message made my stomach twist.
I wanted to scream Derek's name until my throat gave out.
Instead, I made a spreadsheet.
Customer name.
Order number.
Website used.
Amount paid.
Promised delivery date.
I marked every payment I could verify and asked customers who had used the other website to save their receipts and contact their card issuers.
Tasha sat beside me, sorting messages.
"You're going to need more coffee."
"I need a time machine."
"Can't afford one. Derek stole the budget."
I gave her a tired smile.
Then my phone started ringing.
It was a number I didn't recognize.
"Hello?"
"Is this Mia Parker?"
"Yes."
"My name is Cynthia Bell. I'm calling from Harlow House."
I sat up.
"What do you want?"
"I'm reaching out regarding your recent accusations against our founder, Harper Lane."
I stared at the phone.
"My accusations?"
"Ms. Lane would appreciate it if you stopped contacting customers with misleading information about her company."
I almost laughed.
"Your founder is sleeping with my boyfriend, selling my clothes, and using my name on a website I didn't authorize."
There was a pause.
"Those are serious allegations."
"Then tell her to stop giving me evidence."
I hung up.
Tasha stared at me.
"Who was that?"
"Apparently, the other woman's company has a customer service department."
Before she could respond, a notification appeared.
Harper had started a livestream.
The video already had more than a thousand viewers.
Harper sat in a bright boutique surrounded by expensive clothing racks.
Her blonde hair fell in perfect waves over a cream-colored blazer.
She looked nothing like the woman I'd seen in a nightgown the day before.
"Hi, everyone," she began sweetly. "I wanted to address something deeply upsetting."
Tasha reached for my phone.
"Don't watch."
I pulled it back.
"I need to know what she's saying."
Harper took a delicate breath.
"Unfortunately, a small online seller has been spreading false information about my company because of a personal disagreement."
Comments began appearing.
Who?
What happened?
Is this about that Mia girl?
Harper looked directly into the camera.
"I won't share every detail because I'm a professional. But I will say that jealousy can make people do terrible things."
My mouth fell open.
Then she held up a green dress.
My green dress.
The one I'd designed from a sketch in my mother's notebook.
"This is an exclusive Harlow House design," Harper announced. "Sadly, another seller has been attempting to claim our original work as her own."
Tasha cursed.
Harper continued.
"We're considering legal action. In the meantime, please be careful about where you shop."
She smiled.
And the comments exploded.
I bought that dress from Mia!
So Mia stole it?
She seemed so nice!
A woman wrote that she'd been shopping with me for two years.
Someone else replied, You never know who's fake online.
I shut the video off.
For a moment, the entire room seemed to tilt.
My mother had drawn that dress.
I remembered the afternoon perfectly.
She'd been sitting at our kitchen table, recovering from chemotherapy, drawing little flowers along the hem of a dress she'd never have the strength to finish.
"You should make this someday," she'd told me.
"Mom, I'm terrible at sewing."
"Then get better."
I'd laughed.
She'd smiled and added, "Nobody starts out knowing everything, baby."
After she died, I'd spent six months teaching myself how to turn that drawing into a real garment.
Now another woman was holding it up on the internet and calling me a thief.
At noon, my landlord called.
"Mia, this is Mr. Russo."
I braced myself.
"Hi."
"Listen, I don't know what's happening between you and Derek, but the rent hasn't been paid."
I closed my eyes.
"What?"
"You're two months behind."
"That's impossible. I've been transferring Derek my half every month."
Mr. Russo sighed.
"Well, it hasn't reached me."
I opened my banking app.
Two transfers.
Two months.
Both labeled rent.
Both sent to Derek.
I felt sick.
"Mr. Russo, I'm going to get this sorted out."
"I hope so. I like having you as a tenant, but we need a plan."
He agreed to give me a short extension while I reviewed the payments and arranged a payment schedule.
After hanging up, I sat completely still.
Derek hadn't simply spent my money.
He'd taken my rent payments, too.
Tasha looked at the screen.
"How much?"
"Thirty-two hundred."
She swore under her breath.
I put my head in my hands.
My mother had always said that when life got hard, you should deal with the next thing you could actually fix.
But I couldn't figure out which disaster was next.
My business.
My apartment.
My stolen savings.
My reputation.
I felt as though someone had set my entire life on fire, then stood outside selling tickets.
That afternoon, I drove to my mother's old sewing room.
It wasn't really a sewing room anymore.
It was a storage unit on the west side of Cleveland.
After she died, I couldn't bring myself to sell her equipment, so I'd rented the small space and kept her patterns, fabric, and unfinished projects inside.
I unlocked the metal door.
The smell hit me immediately.
Cotton.
Old paper.
A little lavender from the sachets she'd hidden in the drawers.
I sat at her sewing table and cried.
Not the furious crying from the night before.
The quiet kind.
The kind that made me miss her so badly I could almost feel the shape of her hand against my cheek.
"I don't know what to do, Mom."
My voice disappeared into the little room.
I opened her pattern drawer.
Inside were hundreds of sketches.
Dresses.
Blouses.
Coats.
Some finished.
Some not.
Near the bottom, I found the green dress design.
Her handwriting filled the margin.
For Mia. Something beautiful for a woman brave enough to begin again.
I pressed the page against my chest.
Then I noticed a date.
April 14, 2018.
Six years before I'd ever launched that collection.
Six years before Harper Lane had heard my name.
I took a photograph.
Then another.
And another.
There was more than one sketch.
My mother had documented the entire design process.
Fabric samples.
Measurements.
Handwritten revisions.
Everything.
I was still photographing the notebook when someone knocked on the open storage unit door.
A man in a navy work jacket stood outside holding a clipboard.
"Sorry. Are you Mia Parker?"
I wiped my face.
"Yes?"
"My name's Noah Bennett. I run Northline Dispatch."
I recognized the name.
His small delivery company had transported my packages several times when I couldn't make the post office before closing.
He glanced at the sewing table.
"I've been trying to reach you."
"Is something wrong with a delivery?"
He hesitated.
"I think someone's been moving your inventory without your permission."
My heart began pounding.
"What do you mean?"
Noah opened his clipboard.
"Last night, I checked our records because one of my drivers reported something unusual."
He handed me a printed delivery receipt.
The pickup address was my apartment.
The destination was Harlow House.
The driver had collected eleven boxes.
The signature read:
Mia Parker.
I stared at it.
"That's not my signature."
Noah nodded slowly.
"I figured."
Then he turned the page.
There were eight more deliveries.
All authorized using my business name.
All signed by somebody else.
But it was the final delivery that made my blood turn cold.
The pickup was scheduled for Monday.
Three days away.
Destination: Harlow House's new warehouse.
Cargo description: Remaining inventory, equipment, and sewing machinery.
I looked up.
"My sewing machine?"
Noah nodded.
"That's why I came."
At the bottom of the document was a special instruction.
Complete pickup before business owner returns.
Derek wasn't just stealing my clothes anymore.
May you like
He was planning to empty my entire business.
And he had three days to do it.
Related Stories
