Ellis ran his hands over surfaces in search of a hiding spot. Behind the file cabinet, atop the corkboard, above the doorframe.
“Ellis…” Lily was staring into a desk drawer. A drawer with more files. She looked up. “It’s him.”
He rushed to see for himself. Sure enough, in the second folder from the top, the boy’s picture was stapled to a page. Calvin, it read. Ellis knew that round face, those cupid lips. The thick lashes and impossibly large eyes, now turned sad. There was no listed surname. Just another kid from the street, parentless and unwanted. Except that he was none of those.
They skimmed the next sheet, and the next. There were signatures, a scrawled address—
A creak made Ellis turn. Lily winced. It was the sound of metal pipes, the weathered bones of a building settling. A good reminder to wrap things up.
Lily left the top page. She stuffed the other two in her coat pocket as Ellis replaced the file. With the classroom window still open, it was best to go out the way they came.
Another peek into the hallway, a locking of the door, and they were back at the bookshelf. It would be easier to help her climb down if he was on the outside. “I’ll go first,” he told her. He was just raising his knee when the room lit up. A near-blinding flash.
They spun around. A colored woman stood at the doorway, hand on the light switch, eyes bulged with fright.
“It’s me, it’s me,” Lily urged in a rasp, an attempt to prevent a scream. “From earlier. Remember?”
The woman shrank back, grasping the collar of her bathrobe, and her gaze cut to the file in Lily’s hand.
Lily pulled the folder to herself, protecting it. “The little boy I came for—Calvin Dillard—I just needed to know where he went. So I could speak with the parents who adopted him. He was never supposed to be here. Mildred, you have to believe me.”
Living in the building, presumably on the staff, Mildred must have known Calvin. She must have heard him speak about wanting to go home, or crying over missing his mom and sister.
But then, that probably didn’t differentiate him from half the orphans in the place.
Ellis questioned if adding his two cents would help or hinder, but he had to do something. “Please, ma’am. I’m sure you work here because you care a lot about children. So many of them, I’d bet, would give anything to be back with their real family.”
Mildred’s eyes lowered as she loosened her hold on her robe, though only slightly.
“We can help do that if you let us.” He stepped toward her without thinking, raising his hand in an appeal, and her face snapped up.
He’d ventured too close. He’d gambled wrong.
Then someone coughed. A man. Somewhere down the hall.
No one in the room moved.
A debate whirled in Mildred’s eyes. Her job and duty versus questionable claims from strangers breaking the law. It wasn’t much of a contest. She owed them nothing.
Ellis braced for her to flee and yell, sending an alarm to the staff. He prepared to grab Lily, to hustle her through the window, ordering her to run.
Then Mildred flicked a hand. “Go on, get,” she whispered. She was shooing them out.
Lily nodded readily. She scurried over to Ellis, who swiftly crawled out before guiding her down. Her stockinged feet had just landed when the window slid closed.
Ellis sent silent thanks to the woman behind the glass as Lily threw on her shoes. In seconds, the window went black.
Together they hurried back to the car. He started the engine in three tries and drove back toward the highway. Hands shaking from adrenaline, he glanced over to see how Lily was faring. Already she was examining the pilfered pages by flashlight.
“Briarsburg,” she said. “In Sussex County. That’s where Calvin went. It has to be…a half hour north?”
“About that.” It took him a moment to realize she wanted to go now. “Lily, it’s awfully late to make a house call.” His caution wasn’t about social graces. Disturbing the couple unannounced, particularly at this hour, might not be the best strategy.
Before he could say as much, she replied in earnest, “If the director notices the pages are gone in the morning, he just might beat us to the family.”
Ellis considered the possibility. She was right.
But then, when wasn’t she?
He reached into the back seat and rifled through his satchel. “You navigate, I’ll drive,” he said, handing her the map.