The call came at exactly 9:14 that morning. Carla from the bank’s fraud department asked whether I had applied for a $190,000 home equity line of credit against my house in September. I hadn’t. Then she asked whether I remembered signing the documents at a branch two hours away. I had never even visited that branch. By afternoon, Diane Foster and I were sitting across from the bank manager while he placed the application in front of us. Everything looked frighteningly legitimate—my name, Social Security number, and an almost perfect copy of my signature.

Then the manager turned his computer monitor toward us. Security footage showed someone sitting across from a loan officer, calmly signing my name. Diane leaned closer, and I heard her suddenly catch her breath. I had expected the person on that screen to somehow be my son, Kevin. But it wasn’t. When I recognized the man wearing my reading glasses, my entire body went cold. Click continue reading below