She hurried to the desk in her office and pulled open a drawer. A checkbook sat under a pile of tax forms; the routing number matched what was in the spreadsheet, as did the account number.

What did that mean? Andrea grabbed her phone and called the only person she could think of. “Jerry?” she said when he answered. “It’s Andrea. Sorry to bother you again.”

“You’re not bothering me.” A bird sang in the background. He must have been outside. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any updates. You haven’t been charged with anything. Your mother still doesn’t know the name of that journalist—”

“Is there a reason a nursery school would have my bank account number?” she interrupted.

There was a pause. “Huh?”

Jerry sounded old. Tired. He was retired, more or less. Andrea felt terrible dragging him into this. He’d left New York to escape trouble, not wade back into it. And also, admitting what she was looking at, right now, meant admitting she’d been in Piper’s office.

“I can’t say how I know this,” she said. “But does the school have a right to have our bank information?”

“Did you give it to them? Maybe for an ACH withdrawal? How are your payments structured?”

“Oh.” Andrea felt like a dummy. After Arthur was accepted into the program last spring, Silver Swans sent out forms about automatic withdrawals. Of course Andrea filled them out—the more automated the bills, the better. “Right. Sorry. That’s totally it.”

But then Jerry said, “That doesn’t mean they haven’t abused their power.”

Andrea frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“We’re talking about Silver Swans, right?”

“Of course we are. That’s where Arthur goes to school.”

Silence followed. Out the window, several birds flew to her feeder. Jerry had given her that bird feeder, actually; he and Susan, avid bird watchers, had the same one at their house. Andrea could picture Jerry sitting on the glider on the front porch, watching the birds fight for seed. She could also picture him in her family’s town house twenty years ago, smoking cigars with her father, slipping into a back room to talk and not coming out for hours.

“Jerry?” she croaked. “What are you saying?”

“I should go,” he said. He sounded hurried. More lucid, too. “Susan needs me. I’ll be in touch, okay? I’m still trying to figure out who called your mother.”

He disconnected. What on earth did Jerry know about Silver Swans?

Andrea peeked back in on Arthur and was pleased to see he’d fallen back to sleep. It gave her extra time. She drifted to her computer again, waving the mouse to wake up the screen, then navigated to her banking portal.