Chapter 6: What Lily Finally Said Out Loud
Lily's caseworker was a woman named Patricia Osei.
I had spoken to her four times since the adoption — routine check-ins, paperwork, one home visit.
She had always seemed thorough.
Careful.
The kind of person who wrote things down.
She answered on the third ring.
"Mrs.
Hale.
Is everything all right?"
"No," I said.
"I need to report something.
I need to do it properly and I need someone to listen."
A brief pause.
"Tell me what's happening."
I told her about the photograph.
About the emails.
About Donna Reyes's note.
About the supervisor named Hale who had closed the report.
I spoke for nearly ten minutes without stopping.
Ruth stood beside me in the hallway.
Daniel had not come out of the kitchen.
When I finished, Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"I need you to stay in the house," she said.
"Don't let Lily out of your sight.
I'm going to make some calls and I'll be there within two hours.
Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Is your husband there now?"
"Yes."
Another pause.
"Is Lily safe at this moment?"
"She's in the living room.
She's drawing."
"All right.
I'm leaving now.
Don't discuss any of this with your husband until I arrive.
Can you manage that?"
I looked toward the kitchen doorway.
"Yes."
I hung up.
Ruth squeezed my arm once, hard, then let go.
We went back to the living room.
Lily looked up from her drawing.
She had used a brown crayon for the house and a black crayon for the window bars.
Beside the house she had drawn two figures — one tall, one small.
The tall one had no face.
"Who is that?" I asked, sitting beside her.
She pointed to the small figure.
"Me." Then to the tall one.
"Him."
"Which him, sweetheart?"
She picked up the black crayon.
Carefully, she drew a belt around the tall figure's waist.
Ruth made a sound behind me.
Soft.
Like something breaking quietly.
I put my arm around Lily.
She leaned into me without stiffening, which she had never done before.
Not once in six months.
"Lily," I said.
"A lady is coming to talk to us today.
Her name is Patricia.
She's going to ask you some questions.
You don't have to be scared of her."
"Will I have to leave?"
"I don't want you to leave.
I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you stay."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "He used to say nobody would believe me because I was just a foster kid."
My arm tightened around her.
"I believe you," I said.
"I believed you the moment you said don't lock the door."
She looked up at me.
Her eyes were very serious.
Seven years old and very serious.
"He was there six times," she said.
"I counted.
I counted because Donna told me to count.
She said counting made things easier to say later."
Six times.
Donna had told a seven-year-old to count so that she would be able to testify.
I heard Daniel's footsteps in the kitchen.
The sound of a chair scraping.
Then the back door again.
Ruth went to the window.
"He's in the backyard on his phone again."
"Let him make his calls," I said.
I held Lily and looked at her drawing and waited for Patricia to arrive.
When the doorbell rang ninety minutes later, it wasn't just Patricia.
There was a second woman beside her.
Younger.
A badge on her belt.
"Mrs.
Hale," Patricia said.
"This is Detective Anaya Marsh.
She works with our department's child crimes unit.
We'd like to come in."
Behind me, I heard Daniel come in from the backyard.
May you like
He saw the badge.
His phone dropped to the kitchen floor.
