Chapter 4: What Donna Walsh Didn't Know I Knew
I drove home from Mr.
Garrett's office in silence.
No radio.
No phone calls.
Just my hands on the wheel and the photograph sitting on the passenger seat beside me, face up, Claire's eyes looking at the ceiling of my car.
Lily was at my neighbor Barbara's house.
I had two hours.
I sat at my kitchen table with a notepad and wrote down everything I remembered about Donna Walsh.
She had been warm.
That was the first thing I remembered.
Warm and efficient, the kind of person who made you feel like things were being handled.
She had explained Lily's situation with practiced sadness — just the right amount of sorrow in her voice, just the right pause before she said the words no living relatives.
I had believed every word.
I picked up my phone and called Mr.
Garrett.
"The name on the authorization forms," I said when he answered.
"The ones that transferred Lily's file to your office.
Can you tell me if Donna Walsh signed all of them, or just some?"
A pause.
Papers moving.
"All of them," he said.
"And the form that removed the sealed section from the transfer package?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"That form doesn't exist," he said quietly.
"That's the problem.
That section wasn't officially removed.
It was simply never included.
As far as the paperwork trail shows, it was never there."
"But you said a clerk found the backup copies in the state system."
"Yes.
Which means the original documents existed.
They were logged in the state system.
And then they were not included in the physical transfer.
But there's no removal form because officially, according to the file, there was nothing to remove."
"So she didn't falsify a document," I said.
"She just made sure certain documents were never seen."
"That's one way to read it."
"Is there another way?"
He didn't answer.
I thanked him and ended the call.
Then I sat very still for a moment, thinking about what a person would need to cover something like that up.
Access.
Time.
And a reason.
What was Donna Walsh's reason?
I opened my laptop and searched her name.
County employee directory.
A photograph.
The same round face, the same careful smile.
Fifteen years with the department.
Awards for casework excellence.
A quote in a local newspaper article about foster care reform from four years ago: *These children deserve advocates who truly see them.*
I stared at that quote until my eyes blurred.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Barbara: *Lily's asking for you.
Everything okay?*
I typed back: *On my way in ten minutes.
Tell her I'm bringing her favorite crackers.*
I closed the laptop.
Stood up.
And then my phone buzzed again.
Not Barbara this time.
An unknown number.
I answered.
Silence on the other end.
Then a woman's voice, barely above a whisper.
"Mrs.
Wilson?"
I didn't recognize it.
"Yes.
Who is this?"
"You don't know me." A breath.
"But I know who Lily is.
And I know what's in that folder.
I've been trying to find the right person to tell for two years."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Patrice.
I used to work in the records office at the county.
May you like
Donna Walsh is my former supervisor." A pause.
"She didn't do this alone."
