I adopted the teenage boy no one else could handle — and fourteen days later, he set his fork down at dinner and told me I had a right to know what really happened in those other houses.

The state oversight office moved faster than Rourke had counted on.

Dana had contacts there — a deputy director named Marcus Hale, who'd spent eight years investigating systemic failures in county child welfare agencies before moving into oversight. Dana sent him Gail's audit documents, Eli's statement, and Nora's signed account. He called her back within two hours.

The county board's internal review was suspended. A state-level investigation was opened. And on a gray Wednesday morning three weeks later, Paula Rourke was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome.

Dana called me with that news while I was making lunch.

"It's not over," she said right away. "Administrative leave is not a consequence. It's a pause. The investigation could take months. She still has allies on the board. And her attorney is already arguing the audit documents were obtained improperly."

"Were they?"

"Gail kept copies within the scope of her contracted role. It's defensible. But it'll be contested." A pause. "Marcus wants to meet with you and Eli. Formally. Next week."

"Eli will do it," I said. "I'll make sure he knows he doesn't have to, and he'll do it anyway."

Dana almost smiled. I could hear it in her voice.

"One more thing," she said. "Daisy Barlow. I asked Marcus's office to pull the case."

I set down the knife I was holding.

"And?"

"She was removed from the Barlow home fourteen months after Eli was sent back. A different caseworker flagged it during a routine visit. She's been in a stable placement ever since. She's eleven now." A pause. "She's okay, Claire."

I stood at the counter for a moment without saying anything.

"Okay," I said finally. "Okay."

We met Marcus Hale in a conference room at the state offices — a plain room, a long table, water glasses nobody touched. He was tall and quiet, and he listened more than he talked, writing things in a small notebook with a mechanical pencil. Eli sat across from him and answered every question without flinching.

At one point Marcus looked up from his notes.

"Eli, I want you to understand something. The fact that you kept reporting — three times, knowing what happened every time — that took something most adults don't have."

Eli looked at him. "I just didn't want to be the only one who knew."

Marcus wrote that down.

Rourke's attorney requested a meeting with Dana two days later. He came with an offer: Rourke would take early retirement, fully cooperate with the investigation, and sign a written acknowledgment of procedural failures — in exchange for no criminal referral.

Dana called me from the parking garage afterward.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I think she's scared," Dana said. "And I think Marcus's office has enough to refer for criminal charges without her cooperation. I told her attorney exactly that."

"What'd he say?"

"He said he'd be in touch." A pause. "He also said, and I'm quoting him directly — 'My client wants you to know she always acted in the children's best interests.'"