The Missing Heir novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Chapel Cot

I never got the chance to fight the discharge.

Micah had already fought it himself.

I found him in the social worker's office with his cast propped on the desk and a clipboard in his good hand.

"The shelter wants identification," he said, in a perfectly pleasant voice.

"I have a wristband.

They said the wristband was not identification."

"The wristband is not identification," the social worker said, rubbing her forehead.

"Then I can't go to the shelter.

I'd be happy to go.

I just can't prove I'm me."

She looked at me for help.

"It's the rule," I said.

"The rule is a bad one."

"The rule is the rule.

He's medically clear.

I can't hold him."

"I know you can't."

I turned to Micah.

"Do you have anywhere to go tonight?"

"The chaplain says there's a cot."

He folded the clipboard and set it down.

"There's a little office behind the chapel with a space heater and a kettle.

He said I could use it until something turns up.

I said I'd wash the floors."

"You're a man with a cast on his arm."

"I'm a man with a mop and a plan."

The social worker snorted into her hand.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I said the only thing that mattered.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"It's your choice.

You can walk out of here and sleep where you like, and I'm not going to tell you otherwise."

He smiled.

It was the same crooked smile he had given me in the pew, and I felt it all the way down.

"Thank you for not arguing," he said.

"You'd have won."

"I would have lost.

I just wouldn't have known it yet."

At nine that night I stood outside the chapel office with a paper bag in each hand.

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