Three black stitches still marked the cuff.
“Mommy said to give these back when I found you.”
Lauren looked at them for a long moment.
“Keep them,” she said. “I sewed them so you could always find them.”
“I think you did the finding.”
Josie hugged the gloves to her chest.
Later, when the family had been moved upstairs, Hale found Lauren alone on the bench by the glass doors.
The rain had stopped.
“They want you back,” he said. “Section Nine. The director. Somebody inside the program sold that family’s name. We need someone who can’t be bought.”
“Rowan.”
“Not full-time. A different job.”
He sat beside her.
“We have children in the program, dozens. They get sick, they get hurt. They can’t walk into ordinary hospitals under ordinary names. They need someone who can treat them and protect them.”
Lauren looked at her hands.
Steady, warm, hers.
