When She Regretted Her Lies novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Third Report

At nine-forty Thursday morning, a white van with PIE MINISTRY painted on the side was parked behind my car.

It had been parked there long enough that a leaf had landed on its roof.

Under the wiper was a note in round pink letters.

Back by noon! Blessings!

I had a supervised visit at ten, two miles away, and the caseworker's rule was that the visit started when I did.

I called Gil, and it rang out, because he was teaching fourth-period shop to boys with power tools.

So I ran.

I ran in the clogs I wear in the kitchen, with a dish towel still over my shoulder, past Mrs. Tandy's lawn, where she lowered her phone and did not film me.

She just gave me a thumbs-up.

It was the first one I had ever gotten from her.

I reached Inez's porch at ten forty-one, wet from my hairline to my socks, holding a stitch in my side with one hand.

Inez opened the door before I knocked.

"Rena, dear," she said, in the voice she uses for casualties. "We started without you."

In her kitchen, at the table, sat the woman in the gray blazer with her notepad open.

She looked at me and at the dish towel, and her pen began to move.

"Your mother-in-law called me at nine fifty-two," the caseworker said. "She was concerned you hadn't arrived. This is the third report to reach my desk."

"Third?"

"Of this kind."

Inez put a plate of cookies on the table, because the occasion called for it.

"I wasn't going to say anything," she said. "But a child counts the minutes, Rena."

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