“We understand that she is attempting to adopt the foster child she has been caring for, and that you have generously offered to act as a reference on her behalf in order to prove that she is fit to be a parent.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we need you to tell her that you are withdrawing your recommendation—”

“I can’t do that!” he said, shocked.

Mr. Pickering held up his hand. “—withdrawing your recommendation and support of the adoption unless she places a thousand dollars into a CD at the bank. Three-month, six-month, twelve-month. Doesn’t matter.”

“Leslie doesn’t have a thousand dollars!”

“Oh, but she does. She keeps it in a makeshift safe—a metal file box, really—at the back of her linen closet in case of emergencies.” He gave Walter a tolerant smile. “You have to admit that that is not the most secure method of saving money.”

How can he possibly know that? Walter wondered. But he had no doubt that it was true. Mr. Pickering stated it as though it were a fact, and the pastor believed him utterly. Still, the question remained: how had he obtained such personal, secret, information?

“If she places her money in a certificate in our bank, her funds will not only be safer, but they will be earning interest. A win-win!”

“But if she’s keeping her money in a box, maybe she doesn’t want to—”

Mr. Pickering’s face clouded over. “Then she should not be allowed to adopt a child. She’s neither mature nor reliable enough to care for another person.”

“I—”

“—will be happy to do a favor for the bank that saved your sorry ass,” Pickering finished for him. He looked into Walter’s eyes, and what the pastor saw there made him turn away.

“Okay,” he said softly.

Mr. Pickering was all smiles. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Once again, The First People’s Bank thanks you for your assistance.

The lights flickered again, and when Walter looked, the man was no longer in front of him.

Had he walked out during those few seconds when Walter had been briefly distracted and glanced up at the ceiling lights?

Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, he was gone.

2

This couldn’t be right.

Sitting at his desk on his lunch hour, Dr. Wilson frowned as he looked down at the bank statement in his hand and mentally tallied the numbers in front of him. He’d only made one withdrawal of a hundred dollars from his checking account since switching banks last week, but according to these figures,

(wasn’t it a little soon to be receiving a bank statement?)

not only was his checking account down a hundred, but so were his savings and money market accounts. What should have been a simple withdrawal from a single account had metastasized, some incompetent clerk pressing a wrong computer key and taking two hundred extra dollars from him.