Chapter 15: The Shoebox

St. Brigid's smelled the way it always had, of floor wax and boiled rice.

Two men were pulling old shingles off the roof, and the new ones lay stacked in the yard in neat gray bundles.

I stood in the front hall with Ronan beside me and a girl of about nine staring up at me from the stairs.

"Are you the one on the internet?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Are you really rich now?"

"No," I said. "Go and find the director's aide, please."

The door to the director's office stood half open, and a man's smooth voice was coming out of it.

"All we ask is a short statement, ma'am."

I pushed the door wide.

A lawyer in a charcoal suit sat in the visitor's chair with a leather folder on his knee.

Behind the desk, the director sat with her gray cardigan buttoned wrong and her hands flat on the blotter.

She looked at me, and the color left her face.

"Gill."

"I came to ask you something," I said. "It looks like I'm late."

The lawyer rose and gave me a thin smile.

"Miss Hartigan. I represent Mr. Hollister. I was just explaining to your director that Mr. Hollister would like to fund a new wing."

"What does the new wing cost her?"

"A signed affidavit." He set a page on the desk. "It says you stole from the home's petty cash as a teenager.

"It also says you have always been a troubled girl."

I hadn't expected it to hurt, and it did.

The director said nothing.

Ronan rolled in beside me and stopped, and he didn't speak either.

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