Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Asked My Name

Elias moved between us and the door. "Greta, is there a back exit?"

"Through the vaccination room," she said. "But you can't just take two children into the night without a plan."

"I'm not planning to. I'm trying to keep a deputy who set fire to their house from collecting them."

Greta looked at me. "Did you see that happen?"

"I saw the gasoline can. I saw the fire."

Someone knocked on the clinic door. A woman called, "This is Bellwether child services. I need to speak to June Calder."

"What's her name?" Greta called back.

A pause. "Open the door, ma'am."

Greta didn't. She picked up her own phone and dialed the state child-protection hotline. I listened as she asked for the name and employee identification of the person supposedly outside. The real operator could find no matching dispatch.

The woman at the door stopped pretending to be patient. "You are interfering with a lawful placement."

"Then you can send the order to my clinic fax," Greta said. "And I'll verify it."

A hard thud shook the hallway door.

Elias guided me through the vaccination room while Greta called 911 in the neighboring county. "Why do they want Milo?" I asked as we drove.

"They want leverage over your mother."

"But you said you didn't know where she was."

"I don't. I know what she was trying to prove."

He finally told me: Mom had worked for the county emergency housing office after the spring floods. Eighteen families who'd lost homes were recorded as having refused aid. Their supposed signatures looked exactly alike. Millions of federal relief dollars had gone to a demolition company belonging to Harlan's brother-in-law.

"Your mother copied the records," Elias said. "She planned to testify in front of a state oversight panel. She vanished the night before."

A name on paper still belongs to a person.

"If she has proof," I whispered, "why doesn't she just show it?"

Elias's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and pulled onto the shoulder so abruptly my seat belt locked.

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A photograph filled the display. Mom sat in a windowless room, a bruise on her cheek. She held a sheet of paper that said SHE IS ALIVE FOR NOW.

Below it was a message: BRING THE GIRL TO HARLAN. NO POLICE.