“We need to focus on the hallway,” I said, clearing my throat. “The inspector comes on Tuesday.”
Clara watched me for a moment, then reached into her purse and handed me a measuring tape. “You are running out of room to hide things, Caleb.”
At one o’clock, I sat in the small office at the Oakhaven Children’s Home, the air smelling of floor wax and old paper. Deirdre sat across from me, tapping her glasses against her notepad while she turned the pages of my bank statements.
“The home study requires three years of tax returns, which you have provided,” Deirdre said, her tone level and dry. “Your pension is stable, and the clerk’s office retirement package is sufficient.”
I signed my name on the bottom of the home study agreement, the blue ink soaking quickly into the cheap paper. “And the background checks?”
“They are underway,” she said, setting the pen down. “But there is something else. A woman called the main desk yesterday, asking if Lily had been placed yet.”
I paused, my hand still holding the clipboard. “Did she leave a name?”
“No,” Deirdre said, squinting at her notes. “She knew Lily’s file number, which is unusual. She asked specifically about her physical therapy schedule.”
I looked out the window at the parking lot, where my used Buick sat under the heavy gray clouds. “Is that common?”
“Not for a child who has been in the state’s custody for three years,” Deirdre said.
By four in the afternoon, the rain had turned into a steady, cold drizzle that coated the windshield of my car. I walked out of the Oakhaven Clinic after dropping off Lily’s medical release forms, my coat collar turned up against the damp.
A thick yellow envelope was tucked under my driver-side windshield wiper, its paper already dark and soft from the moisture.
I pulled it free, the wet paper tearing slightly at the corner.
The parking attendant, a young man named Leo in a yellow plastic poncho, walked over from his small wooden booth.
“A lady left that for you,” Leo said, wiping rain from his forehead. “About ten minutes ago.”
“Did you see her car?” I asked.
