"I'll make some calls today."
"Good." She looked back at the file. "Is there anyone who can speak to your character? Someone local, someone who's known you over time?"
I thought about it.
Hector was dead—a heart attack three years ago, I'd heard through someone. My father was dead too, and I wouldn't have used him anyway. Twelve years away from this town was twelve years of not building the kind of life that left references behind. The guys from the rigs were good men but they'd known me for months at a stretch, not years, and none of them were here.
"I'd need some time on that," I said.
Phelps nodded slowly, like she'd expected as much. "Think about it. Get back to me before the forty-eight hours are up. A local reference would carry some weight." She closed the file and folded her hands on top of it.
"Here's where we are, Mr. Henley. I haven't made a decision. What I can tell you is that until I have confirmed housing, a completed background check, and a home walkthrough, I can't recommend placement." She said it without apology, which I respected. "If those things aren't in place within forty-eight hours, I'll need to move forward with temporary foster care while the assessment continues. That's not a punishment. It's the process."
"Forty-eight hours," I said.
"Forty-eight hours. There's also the matter of a family law attorney. You'll want one engaged before this goes any further." She slid a card across the table. "This office can provide a referral if you need one."
I took the card.
"Can I see her?" I said. "Lily."
Phelps looked at me for a moment, hesitated. Then she said: "I'll take you down myself."
Chapter Twelve
Jack
Phelps walked me down herself. Third floor to second, a different corridor, quieter. The squeak of our shoes on the linoleum seemed to match the beating of my heart. Phelps didn't say anything and I didn't either. There wasn't anything left to say.
She stopped outside a door left half open and a woman with dark scrubs in her fifties came out to meet us. Deb, the family liaison. Phelps introduced us in a low voice and the two of them exchanged something brief and professional that I wasn't really part of. I stood there and looked at the door.
Through the gap I could hear the television. Something with music in it, children's voices. Low volume, the kind of thing you put on for a kid not because they're watching it but because silence is worse.
Phelps touched my arm once, lightly. "I'll be upstairs," she said, then turned to leave.
Deb looked at me.
"She's been okay," she said. "Quiet girl, which is to be expected. We told her this morning. Used plain language. That's what we're trained to do, really. No euphemisms, nothing that leaves room for hope that isn't there." Her features softened."She took it very… quietly. Hasn't cried much. That's not unusual at this age, from what I usually see. It comes in waves, over days." She made a pause. "She's asked a few times when you were coming."
That stopped me.
"She's been asking for me?"
"She knew someone was coming," Deb said. "Her mom talked about you."
I nodded, then pushed the door open and went in.
* * *
The room was small and dim, the blinds half down against the afternoon light. Lily was sitting up in bed. She had a stuffed rabbit in her lap, both hands around it. The television was on in the corner, some cartoon dancing around the screen, the sound barely there. She wasn't watching it.
She was watching the door.
She had Cassie's dark hair, curling at the ends the way Cassie's always had. Cassie's eyes too, that particular dark. She looked at me as if taking my measurements—careful, waiting to see what I was going to be.
I pulled the chair from the corner and sat down next to the bed. I left some space. I didn't say anything right away, and neither did she.
The rabbit was missing an eye. Someone had sewn a button over the gap at some point, mismatched, slightly too large. She was turning it over in her hands without looking at it, a repetitive but, I assumed, comforting gesture.