Greg stood under the dead winter tree by the curb, one hand in his pocket, staring straight at the shop like he owned the next moment.
Then, slowly, almost casually, he lifted his phone to his ear and smiled.
Daniel’s own phone began to ring in his pocket.
Daniel did not answer the call. He pulled the phone from his pocket, looked at the screen, and then turned it face down on the counter like the sight of the name alone burned him.
Outside, Greg kept smiling.
I had seen many kinds of smiles in my life. Joyful smiles, nervous smiles, kind smiles, proud smiles. But Greg’s smile was the kind that made the room feel colder. It was the smile of a man who believed he still had control.
Mia stepped backward until her shoulders touched the wall beside the children’s section. She looked small again, not because she was weak, but because fear has a way of shrinking people from the outside, even when they are fighting hard on the inside.
“He’s not going to leave,” she whispered.
Daniel glanced toward the back office window, then the front door, then the narrow hall that led to the storage room and rear exit. “He might if we stay calm.”
I turned on him at once. “Stay calm? That man may have stolen money meant for a child, lied for years, and scared this girl so badly she ran from the only roof she had. Do not tell me to stay calm.”
He lowered his voice. “Mom, I know that. I’m trying to keep this from getting worse.”
“It already got worse,” Mia said. Her voice shook, but her words were clear. “The second he found me.”
Greg’s phone call stopped. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, but he did not go away. He simply stood there under the streetlight, watching.
Then he raised one hand and tapped the side of his wrist where a watch would be. A warning. A countdown.
Daniel swore under his breath, then caught himself. “Sorry.”
I folded my arms. “You do not get to stand there acting shocked. You brought him into our lives.”
“I know.”
“No,” I said, sharper now. “You know now, but you did not know when it mattered because you did not bother to know.”
He looked at me with tired, guilty eyes. “That’s fair.”
Mia looked from him to me. “What does he want?”
“The papers,” Daniel said.
She clutched her backpack tight against her chest. “He can’t have them.”
“What exactly do you still have?” I asked gently.
Mia swallowed and knelt by the chair where she had dropped her bag. She unzipped it carefully like it held glass.
From inside, she pulled out a worn Bible with cracked brown leather, a plastic folder bent at the edges, and the envelope her mother had left.
“She kept them hidden in this,” Mia said, touching the Bible. “Not all of them. Some were in the folder under a loose board in our old apartment closet. I grabbed what I could the day my aunt told me to get out.”
Daniel crouched beside the counter and reached for the plastic folder. I stepped between them before he could touch it.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You do not put your hands on anything she brought in here until she says so.”
His face tightened, but he nodded.
Mia opened the folder with trembling fingers. Inside were copies of hospital records, a rental notice, handwritten notes, and two legal forms with signatures at the bottom. One had Rachel’s name. The other had Daniel’s.
Daniel stared at the page. “I never signed that second page.”
I took it and looked more closely. Even to my old eyes, it was clear the signature on one line was stiff. Wrong. Copied badly.
“Forged,” I said.
Daniel nodded once.
Mia looked sick. “So my mom was telling the truth all along.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “She was.”
