Chapter 17 - THE CASEWORKERThe sympathetic caseworker was not difficult to identify once we stopped searching for a criminal.
Her name was Helen Ward.
Sixty-four.
Former Harbor Light placement supervisor.
Retired three years earlier.
And currently missing.
Not officially.
She had simply stopped using credit cards, phones, and her home.
Jonah finally admitted he knew her.
“She recruited me.”
“For what?” Lily asked.
“To build a shadow database.”
That sounded criminal.
It was.
But not for the reason we expected.
Helen had discovered Harbor Light manipulating placements years earlier.
Complaints disappeared.
Audits were sanitized.
Children who reported abuse were labeled unstable.
So Helen created a private duplicate of case records.
She helped a small number of children reach safe relatives when the official system failed.
Caleb was one.
The other three “missing” children were probably alive too.
“Why use Poppy House?” Lily demanded.
Jonah looked ashamed.
“Helen didn’t.”
Silence.
“Then who did?”
“I did.”
Lily stared.
Jonah explained.
Before Poppy House opened, he knew Lily’s center would have strong legal protection, media attention, and independent oversight.
He created the fake entity and routed endangered cases through it.
“You stole my identity.”
“Yes.”
“You forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
“To hide children?”
“To buy time.”
“You made us look responsible.”
“I thought nobody would ever find the records.”
Maya laughed bitterly from across the room.
“You thought wrong.”
Jonah looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya’s answer was devastatingly simple.
“Adults always are after.”
Lily understood then.
Jonah was not the mastermind.
He was not innocent either.
He had tried to correct one broken system by secretly creating another.
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Good intentions had produced new victims.
Exactly the kind of lesson my life had taught us.
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