Chapter 6: Friday Morning
I woke at five.
The house was dark and completely still.
I lay on my back with one hand on my stomach and listened to the silence the way you listen to a building when you're not sure what's inside it.
At five forty, my phone vibrated once.
A text from a number I didn't recognize: *Front door.
Now.
Bring nothing.*
I sat up.
Another text, thirty seconds later: *Grace sent us.
You have four minutes before the shift changes next door.*
I didn't know what shift.
I didn't know who "us" was.
I knew Grace's name and I knew Donna's blue jacket and I knew that Friday was the day Patricia had said the finale would happen.
I put my feet on the floor.
The attic stairs were the problem.
They creaked on the third step and the seventh.
I had memorized that in the first week.
I went down with my back to the wall, weight on the outside edge of each step, one hand on the railing, moving so slowly that by the time I reached the bottom my legs were shaking.
The hallway was dark.
The front door had a chain and a deadbolt.
Daniel had started using the chain two weeks ago.
I had not been able to figure out why until now.
I slid the chain free one link at a time.
The deadbolt turned.
The door opened.
Donna was on the step.
Behind her, parked at the curb with its lights off, was a dark blue car.
In the passenger seat I could see a woman I didn't recognize — short hair, reading something on her phone.
"Can you walk?" Donna said.
"Yes."
"Fast?"
"I'll try."
She put one hand under my elbow and we went down the path.
I didn't look back at the house.
I made a decision not to look back and I kept it.
The woman in the car opened the rear door from inside.
"I'm Renata," she said.
"Grace's colleague.
Get in."
I got in.
Donna came around to the driver's side.
The car pulled away from the curb before the door was fully closed.
I looked out the back window once.
The house was dark.
No lights.
No movement.
"Where are we going?" I said.
"Hospital first," Renata said.
"Real one.
We need you checked and documented before anything else." She turned in her seat to look at me.
"Do you have the recordings?"
"Yes."
"All of them?
Including last night?"
"Yes."
She nodded and turned back to face the road.
"Good.
Because the man you heard downstairs — the third voice — his name is Warren Gill.
He's run three private adoption placements in this county in the last four years.
Two of them are currently under investigation." She paused.
"He didn't know Patricia was being recorded."
Donna kept her eyes on the road.
I pressed my hand against my stomach.
The baby moved — a slow roll, like she was turning over in her sleep.
"She's okay?" Donna said, watching me in the mirror.
"She's moving," I said.
"Good." Donna's eyes went back to the road.
"Keep talking to her."
I put both hands on my stomach and didn't say anything for a long time.
I didn't need to say anything.
We were already three miles from the house when Daniel's name lit up my phone screen.
I turned it face-down on the seat.
Renata looked at it.
"Don't answer.
Don't block it either.
May you like
Let it ring."
It rang four more times before we reached the hospital.
