Chapter 26: Unmarked Vans

It was full dark when Ronan parked the farm truck at the fence of Larkspur House.

The Moot had sat late, and Joanne's text was an hour old.

The home was a long brick building at the north end of the valley, with a loading dock behind it.

Two white vans stood backed up to the dock with their rear doors open.

Neither had a state seal on the door, and the plates were from out of the county.

Joanne's little blue car idled at the gate.

She stood beside it hugging her crooked arm against her cardigan.

"Seven loaded," she said. "I watched them from the road. Nobody at the front desk will say who signed them out."

"Stay here," I said.

"Write down the plates first."

I wrote down the plates.

Two men in gray coveralls were walking an old woman up the ramp by the elbows.

She wore a nightgown and a hospital sock on one foot.

A steel band was fastened around her wrist, with a letter and a number stamped on it.

The men wore steel collars, hinged at the back.

"Those are the Director's," Ronan said, very low.

"I know."

"I'll take the second van."

He went off along the fence toward the far end of the dock.

I walked up the ramp with my notebook open.

"Good evening. I'm Mara Linwood, Department of Shifter Welfare. Who authorized this transfer?"

The nearer man kept buckling a strap across a wheelchair.

He didn't look up.

"Stop," I said.

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