I signed their character reference myself, right in my office, on church letterhead.”

“You sent her clear to Tyler,” I said.

“Your mother set up the private placement through Arthur,” Higgins said.

“The Rountrees sent Evelyn a monthly bank draft to cover the ongoing legal costs.

It was a quiet, necessary blessing for everybody involved.”

“You let me kneel down in the dirt,” I said.

“Evelyn thought it was safer for you to have a real place to grieve,” Higgins said.

“She told me that if you believed the baby was truly gone, you could move on and make a normal, quiet life working here in Deer Park.”