David Carter lived in a rehabilitation residence outside Portland, more than three hundred miles away.
The cane in the surveillance image suddenly meant less than Bernard wanted it to.
According to the investigator’s report, David had survived a stroke two years earlier. He walked slowly and required a cane for balance.
Rachel read the page twice.
“That puts another person with history and motive into the story.”
Bernard looked at her.
“What motive?”
“We don’t know.”
“That isn’t motive.”
“It also isn’t innocence.”
Wilkes closed the file.
“Which is why none of you are contacting him.”
Bernard stared.
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You have the face of a man already calculating driving time.”
“It’s five hours.”
Rachel gave him a look.
Wilkes pointed toward the door.
“You are going home.”
“I don’t have anyone there.”
“That may change tomorrow.”
The emergency-placement review began at nine the next morning.
The department had completed Bernard’s expedited assessment.
No serious concerns were found.
The house passed inspection. His finances were tight but stable. His business could be operated on a reduced schedule. The community center had organized a childcare support plan. Three neighbors had volunteered as emergency contacts.
The recommendation still contained reservations.
Five children were an extraordinary burden.
Bernard lacked parenting experience.
Leo exhibited trauma symptoms and hypervigilance. Mia had stopped speaking in unfamiliar settings. Caleb had begun wetting the bed. Emma experienced panic when separated from her siblings. Noah’s sleep schedule was erratic.
Judge Lawson read every page.
Then he looked at Bernard.
“You asked this court to consider keeping these children together.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You understand that the romantic version of this decision ends the moment they enter your house.”
Bernard thought of Samuel.
His foster father had once told him something similar about woodworking: people admired finished tables because they never saw the hours spent correcting mistakes no photograph would reveal.
“Yes.”
“Do you still want placement?”
“Yes.”
The judge turned toward the children’s representative.
“Recommendation?”
A woman named Dana Holt stood.
“Temporary kinship-style placement with Mr. Vance, conditioned on intensive supervision, therapeutic services, childcare assistance and continued investigation of competing family claims.”
Bernard’s breathing stopped.
Charles Mercer’s attorney rose.
“We object.”
Judge Lawson barely looked at him.
“Noted.”
Mercer himself sat perfectly still.
Dana continued. “The children have repeatedly expressed that their primary concern is remaining together. Leo and Mia have indicated they feel safe with Mr. Vance. Emma has demonstrated an attachment through her mother’s prior connection to him. There is no evidence that immediate separation is necessary for safety.”
Judge Lawson removed his glasses.
“Then the court will authorize temporary placement for fourteen days.”
Bernard heard Rachel inhale.
“Review will occur thereafter.”
A sound came from behind him.
Not crying.
Caleb had whispered, “We’re going to the tiger house.”
Leo hissed, “There is no tiger.”
Judge Lawson looked over his glasses.
For the first time Bernard saw him smile.
“There had better not be.”
The move took three minivans.
Bernard had imagined some ceremonial arrival.
There was none.
Noah screamed for fourteen straight minutes.
Caleb vomited in the driveway.
Mia refused to enter the house until Leo went first.
Emma carried Captain beneath one arm and touched every doorframe she passed.
Leo inspected the locks.
All of them.
He tested the back door twice.
Bernard did not tell him to stop.
By six, the kitchen looked as though a grocery store had exploded.
Someone hated peas.
Someone else hated anything touching anything else.
Noah rejected the bottle Bernard had prepared.
Caleb wanted the blue cup that did not exist.
Emma cried because the bathroom fan was loud.
Mia asked where her mother would sleep.
Bernard stood at the stove holding a wooden spoon while the entire room seemed to tilt.
He had fought lawyers, deadlines and bureaucratic requirements.
None had prepared him for that question.
Mia looked at him.
“Where does Mom sleep here?”
Leo froze.
Bernard put the spoon down.
“She doesn’t.”
Mia’s face collapsed.
Bernard immediately wished there were a better answer.
He crouched beside her.
“Your mom died, Mia.”
“I know.”
Her voice was furious.
“Then where does she sleep?”
Bernard looked at the floor.
He remembered adults explaining death to children using words that sounded gentle and meant nothing.
“I don’t know where people go after they die,” he said. “I wish I did.”
Mia’s eyes filled.
“But if you mean where she belongs in this house, that part is easier.”
She frowned.
“Anywhere you remember her.”
Mia stared at him for a long moment.
Then she ran from the kitchen.
Bernard looked at Leo.
“That went badly.”
Leo shrugged.
“She does that.”
“Good to know.”
“She’ll come back.”
And she did.
Ten minutes later Mia returned carrying a framed photograph Maria had packed from the placement center.
Emily stood on a beach holding Noah while the older four children crowded around her.
Mia placed it on the kitchen counter.
“Here.”
Bernard nodded.
“Here is good.”
That evening lasted forever.
At nine forty, Caleb was finally asleep.
At ten fifteen, Mia was asleep.
At ten twenty-two, Emma appeared in the hallway carrying Captain.
Bernard sat with her until she stopped crying.
At eleven, Noah woke.
At eleven fifteen, Leo appeared at the nursery door.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
Bernard looked down at the screaming infant in his arms.
“I’m open to expertise.”
Leo took the bottle from the counter.
“He likes it warmer.”
“It’s warm.”
“Warmer.”
Bernard heated it slightly.
Noah drank.
Leo looked smug.
“I hate that you were right.”
Leo almost smiled.
It was the closest Bernard had seen.
At midnight, everyone was finally quiet.
Bernard stood alone in the kitchen surrounded by half-washed dishes and looked at Emily’s photograph.
“We survived day one,” he told her.
The house made a sound behind him.
A dull thump.
Bernard turned.
It came from the workshop.
He had locked it.
He moved quietly down the breezeway.
Another sound.
Metal against wood.
Bernard reached for the heavy flashlight he kept on a wall hook.
The workshop door stood open.
Cold air moved through the room.
One of the rear windows had been forced.
Bernard stopped.
Someone had entered.
He did not go farther.
Five children slept twenty feet away.
He backed into the house, locked the connecting door and called police.
Wilkes arrived twelve minutes later.
Bernard hated that the detective seemed unsurprised.
“What was in here?” Wilkes asked after officers cleared the workshop.
“Tools.”
“Anything from the storage unit?”
Bernard frowned.
“No. Police have that evidence.”
“Anything Emily-related?”
“Captain was here yesterday.”
“Anything else?”
Bernard looked toward his workbench.
Then he saw it.
The metal cashbox from his bedroom closet.
He had brought it into the workshop that afternoon to show Leo the old photograph of Bernard and Emily.
The box lay open.
Papers had been scattered across the floor.
Bernard moved toward it.
Wilkes stopped him.
“Don’t touch.”
Bernard scanned the contents.
Photographs.
School certificates.
Returned letters.
Marcus’s birthday card.
“What’s missing?”
“I don’t know.”
He knelt without touching anything.
Then he saw the empty place.
“The photograph.”
“Which photograph?”
“The one with Emily holding Captain.”
Wilkes’s expression changed.
“That’s all?”
Bernard looked again.
“No.”
He had kept one other document beneath the photograph.
Marjorie’s copied notes.
The page containing Charles Mercer’s initials was gone.
Wilkes swore quietly.
Rachel arrived twenty minutes later in slippers beneath her long coat.
“Do you people deliberately commit crimes at hours when I’m least professionally dressed?”
“No one committed a crime,” Bernard said.
She looked at the broken window.
“Right.”
Wilkes walked the perimeter.
The intruder had approached through the trees behind the workshop, avoiding the front security camera.
But Bernard had installed a second camera after the home inspection.
It covered the side yard.
He opened the application on his phone.
At 11:57, a dark figure moved along the fence.
No face.
No plate.
Then the person turned slightly.
Something pale appeared near their head.
Hair.
Long hair.
Bernard enlarged the frame.
Rachel leaned closer.
“That isn’t Mercer.”
“Could be a hood.”
“No,” Wilkes said.
He pointed.
A strand of hair had escaped beneath a knit cap.
The figure was likely a woman.
Bernard stared at the screen.
“Who would want Emily’s childhood records?”
No one answered.
The children slept through the police search.
Except Leo.
Bernard found him sitting at the top of the stairs after two in the morning.
“How long have you been there?”
Leo shrugged.
“You heard us?”
Another shrug.
Bernard sat two steps below him.
“Someone broke into the workshop.”
Leo’s face went pale.
“They didn’t come in the house.”
“Was it Grandpa?”
“We don’t know.”
Leo pulled his knees against his chest.
“He sends people.”
Bernard turned.
“What?”
Leo stared down at the stair tread.
“Mom said that.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Leo shut his eyes, trying to remember.
“She was talking on the phone. She said, ‘You can stop sending her. I’m not changing my mind.’”
Bernard’s heartbeat changed.
“Her?”
Leo nodded.
“Did you ever see who she meant?”
“I don’t know.”
A memory seemed to catch.
“Maybe.”
“Tell me.”
“There was a lady at school.”
“What lady?”
“She watched us.”
Bernard forced himself not to push too fast.
“What did she look like?”
Leo frowned.
“Brown hair.”
“Anything else?”
“She had a red car.”
“Did your mom know her?”
Leo nodded.
“What was her name?”
“I don’t know.”
Bernard’s phone rang.
Wilkes.
He was downstairs.
Bernard answered.
“We found something outside the workshop window,” Wilkes said.
Bernard looked down the stairs toward him.
“What?”
“A pendant.”
“Does that help?”
“It has initials.”
Bernard stood.
“What initials?”
Wilkes held the small evidence bag under the hallway light.
Inside was a silver oval pendant.
Two letters had been engraved on its back.
M.C.
Bernard knew no one with those initials.
Wilkes did.
He had just finished reviewing Emily’s files.
“There’s a woman named Madeline Carter in the private investigator’s report.”
Bernard descended one step.
“Who is she?”
Wilkes looked at him.
“David Carter’s daughter.”
Bernard stopped.
Emily had a half-sister.
And she had apparently been outside his workshop less than three hours after the children moved in.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The first night that felt almost like a family ended with Emily’s own voice revealing why she had hidden the truth from Bernard
Five children were about to be divided among strangers, and Bernard Vance had nine days to prove one man could become their home
Part 7 of 15
