“She told the orderly at the desk she was looking for a gold earring she’d dropped,” Detective Miller said, pressing the zip seal shut.

At half past nine, a woman in a blue knit cardigan came into the small conference room next to the security office.

Her clip-on plastic badge identified her as Sarah Vance, Child Interview Specialist.

She set a narrow yellow legal pad on the laminate table between our chairs.

“I just finished talking with Brooklyn in the children’s alcove down the hall,” Sarah said, sitting down across from us.

I rubbed my incision through my cotton sweater and felt the sharp, tight pull beneath the thick surgical dressing.