For a moment I stood looking at the difference in color.
Then I picked up a paint roller and began covering the wall.
CHAPTER 17: The Person Who Sent the Warning
The mystery of the photocopied threat was resolved in a way none of us expected.
A retired clerk named Harold Baines contacted Naomi and admitted leaving the page at Aaron’s workshop.
He said he had recognized our father’s signature in a photograph someone circulated among former Alder House employees.
Harold believed the investigation would expose mistakes he had made as a young administrator.
He wanted to frighten us into dropping the matter.
He had not been paid by Richard, and he had never spoken to him about the note.
His admission did not make the threat harmless.
Naomi documented it and explained his options under the law.
For me, the revelation was another reminder that fear could recruit people who were not members of some perfectly organized plot.
Harold had waited nearly thirty years to admit he helped enter incorrect departure dates on residency records.
He said he had believed the children were going to approved placements.
Later, when concerns surfaced, he followed instructions to destroy older copies of the roster.
“I knew it was wrong,” he told the investigator.
“I told myself everybody was doing what they were supposed to do.”
My father had refused one instruction and regretted years of silence afterward.
Harold had obeyed and spent those same years hoping no one would ask questions.
Neither man’s decision could undo what happened to Tessa, Owen, or the others.
Their records now gave investigators more than a rumor to examine.
CHAPTER 18: The Letter Returned
Mara asked me to meet her at the community center again.
This time she brought no file folder.
She carried the letter my father had written to her, which Naomi had allowed her to keep after it was copied.
“He apologized for not finding me,” she said.
“But I don’t think he understood how hard he tried.”
I asked what she meant.
She remembered a man waiting outside Alder House after her mother died.
He had offered her an envelope and told her to keep asking questions even if adults called her difficult.
Richard arrived before she could take it.
He told the man to leave her alone and drove her away.
Mara had not remembered the man’s name until she saw the handwriting on the letter.
“Your father wasn’t there only for the building,” she said.
