Chapter 8: Form 12-T

The transfer form was called 12-T, and it was one page long.

I found it at seven the next morning in the bottom drawer of the supply cabinet, under a box of carbon paper.

Nobody had filed one in four years.

The first line said *Reason for transfer*, and below it were six small boxes.

Caseload. Safety. Schedule. Relocation. Retirement. Other.

I looked at the boxes for a long time.

I checked *Other*, and in the space below I wrote, in block capitals, *CONFLICT OF INTEREST. I AM ATTRACTED TO THE CASE.*

My hand did not shake.

I signed it and walked it down the hall to Brenda Kessinger's office.

She was eating oatmeal out of a mug.

"Morning," she said. "You look like you slept in a car."

"I slept on the couch. I have a form."

I put it on her desk.

She read it with her glasses on her nose, and then she read it again, and then she set down her spoon.

"Molly," she said.

"I didn't sleep with him."

"I didn't ask."

"I want that on the record. Nothing happened. I almost let it, and I stopped, and now I'm filing before anything else can."

"You almost let it."

"Last night."

"In his house."

"In his kitchen."

Brenda took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Eleven years," she said. "In eleven years I have had caseworkers fall for their cases four times."

She counted on her fingers.

"Three of them lied to me about it for months. One cried in my office and quit."

"I'm not going to cry."

"You might."

"I might," I admitted.

"You're the first to file the paper." She picked up her pen. "Do you know what that tells me?"

"That I'm an idiot?"

"That you're honest. Which Morvath has been telling me about for years, in his weird way, in his letters."

"His letters?"

"Every Christmas, to this office. Thanking us for the work. Nobody opens them." Brenda smiled a little. "I do."

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