The wind caught the paper again, flapping the torn edge against my thumb.

The torn yellow legal pad sheet fluttered on the damp pavement of the driveway.

By nine o’clock on January tenth, Evan and I were standing in the lobby of the Oak Ridge Police Department.

The fluorescent tubes in the low ceiling hummed overhead, casting a flat yellow glare over the polished linoleum.

The administrative letter lay open on the Formica counter between my hands.

It had shown up in our mailbox forty minutes earlier, in a wide window envelope stamped with the seal of the county child safety compliance division.