Chapter 12 - SEVENTEEN CHILDRENLily called me at 7:43.
She was twenty-seven years old.
A licensed psychologist.
Director of her own center.
Married to nobody.
Dependent on nobody.
I still answered on the first ring.
“Dad.”
“What happened?”
She hated that I could hear it immediately.
“I need you not to become Alessandro Romano for about ten minutes.”
“That sentence has never preceded anything good.”
She explained.
Seventeen children.
All supposedly treated at Poppy House before it opened.
All discharged into relatives’ homes.
Four had subsequently disappeared from the child welfare system entirely.
Not kidnapped.
Not officially missing.
Their files simply ended.
I arrived thirty-one minutes later.
Lily met me outside.
“No private investigators.”
“Agreed.”
“No calling people who owe you favors.”
“Define favors.”
“Dad.”
“Fine.”
“No threatening anyone.”
“I’m sixty-two.”
“That has never stopped you.”
Fair.
Clara arrived behind me.
She hugged Maya before she asked a single question.
That was why Clara had always been better at this than I was.
Maya showed us photographs.
The building where she had supposedly stayed was not Poppy House.
It was a converted elementary school outside the city.
The sign had read:
HARBOR LIGHT FAMILY TRANSITION CENTER.
I knew the name.
Harbor Light was one of the largest private child-placement contractors in the state.
Its founder, Evelyn Shaw, appeared regularly on television.
Awards.
Fundraisers.
Photographs with governors.
She had even donated fifty thousand dollars to Poppy House.
Lily looked at me.
“You recognize her.”
“I recognize everybody who gives me fifty thousand dollars.”
“You don’t run the foundation.”
“I read.”
Daniel entered carrying financial records.
He was older now.
Gray at his temples.
Still irritated whenever accountants used commas incorrectly.
“Her donation never cleared.”
Lily turned.
“What?”
Daniel placed the statement down.
“The check was canceled.”
“Why?”
“No explanation.”
Then he showed us something stranger.
Three months before Poppy House opened, someone had registered a company called:
POPPY FAMILY TRANSITION SERVICES LLC.
The registered agent was hidden behind a legal-services company.
Its mailing address belonged to an abandoned office.
Its incorporation paperwork contained one name.
Lily Bennett Romano.
May you like
Her identity had been stolen.
Someone had built a fake Poppy House before the real one existed.
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