He Sent Every Dollar, So Why Was My Daughter Starving? novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Report

The caseworker sat at my kitchen table and wrote for a long time.

She checked the cupboards and the refrigerator, and she asked to see Maisy's room.

Maisy slept with the rabbit tucked under her chin.

The caseworker stood over her bed, counted the ribs through the pajama top, and wrote one more line.

"She's very thin for four," she said quietly in the hall.

"She's been hungry," I said. "That's why."

"And the father?"

"Deployed. Until yesterday."

"I see." She looked at Kurt, who stood with his arms folded and his jaw tight. "Sergeant, can you explain the empty house I was told about?"

"My family's money was stolen," he said. "A report is being made with the police tomorrow. Tonight my wife has a full kitchen, and I'm not leaving it."

"I believe you," she said, and I saw she meant it. "But my report has to follow what I was told. The caller said she's been weak and fainting for weeks."

"The caller?" I asked. "Who made it?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Was it a woman?"

"I can't say." She flipped a page. "The call was logged Friday at four forty. It came in on a business line, not a private one."

"Which business?"

She hesitated, then turned the clipboard slightly.

The number sat under the date.

I knew it by heart.

I had dialed it a hundred times to ask about my schedule at the laundromat next door.

It was the front office line for Bissell Foods.

Kurt read it over my shoulder and went very still.

"That's the store," I said.

"A person with access to the line made the call," the caseworker said. "That's all I can tell you."

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