Chapter 11 - The Woman at the Bus Station
Mara showed Nora a page of handwritten names. Next to some were addresses. Next to others, only a question mark. She explained that the old program had moved teens between temporary placements, often without the records they needed to contact family. The uncertainty in the ledger was its own kind of cruelty: there were people who might have grown into happy adults, and nobody in that room knew where to find them.
“Why didn't anyone report this years ago?” Adrian asked.
“People did,” Mara answered. “A mother called. A teacher wrote letters. A caseworker flagged an invoice. But each person only saw a piece. And the people holding the whole picture had money to keep the pieces apart.”
Adrian thought of his company's bright offices and the way everyone lowered their voices when he entered. He wondered how many warnings had been polished into harmless updates before reaching his desk.
Nora photographed the page with Mara's permission and handed the original back. “We need to find everyone on this list.”
“We need to try,” Mara corrected. “And we need to ask them what help they want. They aren't clues in your family mystery. They're people.”
Nora nodded. “You're right.”
Mara chose a public bus station forty miles away, where cameras covered every entrance and strangers came and went without noticing one another.
Adrian arrived with Harris and Nora. Mateo stayed with Lucy and Ben, who finally slept through a night without nightmares.
Mara was in her sixties, with silver hair pulled into a knot and the wary eyes of someone who had spent decades hearing stories no one wanted to believe.
“Sofia was working with Margaret,” she said. “They uncovered payments to a company that claimed to provide housing and training for vulnerable teens. The invoices were false. Some kids were never placed anywhere legitimate.”
“Isabel?” Nora asked.
Mara lowered her head. “She's on the list.”
Adrian felt cold. “What happened to her?”
“We don't know. But we finally know who signed the transfers.”
“Keene?”
“Your father authorized the program. Keene managed it. After your father's death, the accounts should have been investigated. Instead, they moved under a charitable trust.”
“Celeste?”
“She became a trustee last year.”
Mara opened a folder containing copies of financial records and a letter from Margaret. The letter named a state investigator and described an appointment Margaret had missed because she'd been suddenly hospitalized.
“Where's Sofia now?” Adrian asked.
Mara glanced toward the station windows. “She was supposed to meet us here.”
Harris's radio crackled. A woman had approached the south entrance, seen a dark SUV, and fled.
Mara stood so abruptly her chair scraped the floor.
May you like
“She thinks they've found her.”
Outside, a gray vehicle rolled slowly past the station a second time. In its passenger seat sat Celeste, looking straight toward the glass doors.
