“She and I were in this together,” Val said, stretching the truth more than a little. “I know she was checking the records here and using the computers to find out if the people who we were told were our biological parents really were.”

Fingering the cross at her throat, Simone nodded.

“Did she tell you anything?”

“No.” Simone shook her head. “But”—she glanced over her shoulder, and her eyebrows drew hard together—“I, uh, I helped her with the computer, and I know she kept a notebook.”

The diary! Val’s heart nearly skipped a beat. Finally, Valerie felt as if she were getting somewhere.

Simone cleared her throat, as if nervous that she’d said too much.

“Do you know where it is?”

Simone hesitated, as if she were fighting an inner battle, but finally said, “We have private cubicles here. It’s a relatively new practice because of some theft, but the school decided the few personal items we have and the equipment we need to teach should be locked up.” She led Val past the slide with its corkscrew turns and depression in the sawdust where thousands of tiny feet had landed.

Just not hers.

A gust of wind blew, rattling the chains on the playground again, and it was all Valerie could do not to fall back into the darkest period of her life in this place where she felt forever frightened.

“This way,” Sister Simone said, breaking into Valerie’s reverie.

Telling herself she was being ridiculous, Val realized the nun had stowed the bats and balls in a basket on the porch and was holding the door open. She followed Sister Simone along the old familiar hallways where the art and paint color were different, but the worn tiles on the floor were the same and the doorways hadn’t moved in over thirty years. At the gym doors, there was a flurry of activity, volunteers already working on the auction that would be held in a few days. While the dinner was going to be held in a hotel three blocks away, tours of the orphanage, before it closed its doors forever, would be allowed. Hence, the volunteers were converting the gymnasium into the display area for the donated items that would be auctioned.

Valerie had never spent much time in the gym, as she’d been so young when she’d arrived at St. Elsinore’s.

Today, as Sister Simone led her down the halls, her heart began to drum a little faster. She remembered the kids staring at her on the day that... What was her name? The woman who’d brought her here? Theresa . . . or . . . Tonia . . . No, that wasn’t right, but she remembered the nun who had been assigned to settle Valerie into the orphanage.

Sister Ignatia had pulled her along this very corridor. Sharp fingernails had dug into Valerie’s upper arm as she’d been propelled along. The corridor had seemed endless, dark and scary.