“My Sister Totaled My 16-Year-Old’s Brand New Car,” the cop said at 2 A.M., “and witnesses saw your daughter flee the scene.” The “witnesses” were my parents and my sister. By 8 A.M., they were on the phone, calmly explaining how my anxious, non-driving teen should take the charge to protect Lauren’s influencer brand. I said nothing. I opened my laptop, pulled up the Mustang’s hidden black box recording… and that afternoon, we met again—at the police station.

By the time the pounding on my front door started, I was deep enough in sleep that I was dreaming in color. In the dream, I was walking through an…
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