Chapter 16 - The Children on the List
The words followed me home and into sleep.
Sophie isn't the only child on the list.
I dreamed of rows of names pinned to a wall, each one written in Lucia's careful handwriting. In the dream, Sophie stood at the end of the hallway asking me why none of the doors had handles. I woke before dawn with my heart racing and the taste of orange bread still in my mouth.
I called Ellis at eight. She was already expecting me.
“The audio is one piece of evidence,” she said. “We don't yet know what list Lucia meant.”
“Could there be other children in danger?”
“That's a possibility we're taking seriously. We are checking the foundation's programs and the accounts connected to them.”
I wanted to demand names and addresses. Instead, I asked what I could do. She told me to continue documenting anything unusual and to keep Sophie's routines as normal as possible.
That was the hardest instruction I had ever received: continue living.
At Five Minutes, I called a staff meeting. I explained there was an ongoing police inquiry involving old Russo foundation records, that we had no evidence of a threat against the shop's customers, and that anonymous complaints should be forwarded to me rather than discussed with strangers. I gave everyone the option to adjust shifts if the attention felt overwhelming.
A young cashier named Ben asked whether we were going to close.
“No,” I said. “Unless there's a safety reason, we're going to keep serving breakfast.”
Tessa raised a rolling pin like a flag. “Then let's serve it properly.”
The room laughed, and for a moment we were just a bakery again.
Nora looked exhausted. She had heard the same recovered recording and was certain the second voice belonged to Marianne. Ellis hadn't formally confirmed it, but Nora knew her aunt's quiet way of speaking.
“She was there,” Nora said. “She knew Lucia was afraid.”
“Then she may know what the list means,” I answered.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Nora pressed her palms against the counter. “What if the police are wrong and she's in trouble right now?”
I had no useful reassurance. I offered to sit with her while she contacted the missing-persons officer again. Sometimes that was all care looked like: holding the silence without lying about what it contained.
At lunchtime, Dominic brought an accountant named Evelyn Park to meet Lena. Evelyn had been hired to review the family foundation independently and had no connection to the old Russo management. She described a set of payments labeled CHILD WELFARE TRANSITION SUPPORT. The account funded transportation and temporary housing for families who had applied for foundation grants. Some disbursements were legitimate. Others led to nonexistent addresses.
“The suspicious transfers were routed through the same company that received Raffaele's consulting payments,” Evelyn said. “We have frozen what remains, and the investigators have the records.”
“What about the children?” I asked.
“We don't know that any child was moved improperly,” she replied. “But we can't reconcile the identities on several applications. We are asking the appropriate agencies to verify them.”
Dominic stared at the table. “My family's name was on this.”
“It was,” Evelyn said. “That makes accurate cooperation more important, not less.”
I appreciated that she didn't soften it for him.
After the meeting, Dominic walked with me to the front window. On the sidewalk, Sophie had stopped to admire a dog while Grace waited beside her.
“I want to fix it,” he said.
“I know.”
“I could fund every legitimate family program we find.”
“Money doesn't repair everything.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Listen to the people who were affected. Let independent investigators make the findings. Don't use Sophie as proof that you've changed.”
He nodded slowly. “You're right.”
Sophie came inside and demanded her five-minute hug. Dominic crouched, and she wrapped herself around his shoulders. I watched him hold her without checking his phone. The man who once controlled a mansion with a glance now waited for a small girl to decide when she was finished.
That evening, Ellis called. The foundation list contained eight names attached to questionable transfers. Three corresponded to real children whose families confirmed they had received lawful assistance. Two entries were duplicates created by administrative errors. The remaining three could not yet be verified.
“Are they missing?” I asked.
“Not necessarily. We don't have enough information to say that. We're working with the relevant agencies.”
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
“The list may be an accounting scheme, not a trafficking scheme,” Ellis said. “But whoever created the false entries used children's details to move money, which is serious on its own.”
“Did Lucia discover it?”
“That appears likely.”
On Sunday morning I drove Sophie to the library for a children's story hour. She insisted on bringing Mr. Buttons in a tiny backpack and announced that rabbits needed education too. The librarian greeted her by name and helped her find a book about a girl who planted a garden on a rooftop.
While the children listened, I sat near the back with Grace. She had brought a notebook of ideas for the bakery's next community event: a low-cost breakfast for parents who worked early shifts, with a small table where children could draw while they waited. She called it a way to make Five Minutes useful without pretending we could solve every problem in the neighborhood.
“I like it,” I said. “But we'll need a budget. I won't promise free meals and then fail to pay the staff.”
“That's why I brought numbers.”
She showed me a rough plan. The margins were tight but workable if we partnered with the nearby market for surplus fruit. We agreed to test it once a month before expanding.
Sophie returned carrying the rooftop-garden book and asked whether flowers grew better when people talked to them.
“They grow better when people water them,” I said. “Talking doesn't hurt.”
“Then I'll tell ours good morning.”
On the drive home, I thought about the foundation list. I had been so frightened by the idea of other children being hurt that I wanted to step into a problem I did not understand. The library reminded me there were already people helping children in ordinary ways: librarians, teachers, volunteers, parents, and neighbors. Not every kind action needed a Russo family fund attached.
When we reached Grace's apartment, Dominic was waiting outside at the agreed time to take Sophie to the park. He had brought her helmet and a water bottle. I asked whether he could stay for a few minutes so we could talk about the foundation's records.
“Of course,” he said.
I told him about the breakfast idea. He offered to fund it, and I said no. He looked disappointed for half a second, then asked whether he could volunteer to carry tables when we needed help.
“Yes,” I said. “That would be useful.”
He laughed. “I've been demoted from investor to furniture mover.”
“It's a promotion if you do it well.”
Sophie tugged his sleeve. “Papa, no talking. Park time.”
He crouched. “You're right. I promised.”
As they left, I watched him walk at her pace. He had once measured importance by who waited for him. Now he was learning to measure it by whether he kept someone waiting unnecessarily.
That afternoon, Lena called to confirm that the bakery's original ownership documents remained secure in her files. She reminded me that if anyone challenged the agreement, the signed copies and audit records would be essential.
I thanked her and returned to the kitchen, unaware that the next message would turn those very documents into the center of the case.
The next day, someone left a box outside the bakery. It contained a dozen paper crowns like the ones Sophie made for customers. At the bottom was a typed note: How many children can you protect with five minutes?
I called the police immediately. They collected the box and checked the cameras. The delivery had come through a courier service, paid for online with a prepaid card. No threat was stated, but the message was clearly meant to unsettle me.
Tessa wanted to know whether we should cancel the weekend's children's baking class. I asked Ellis. She advised extra precautions, not automatic cancellation, and I decided to proceed with registration limited to families we already knew.
We held the class on Saturday. Sophie wore an apron too large for her, and Dominic sat at the smallest table with a group of children rolling dough into uneven circles. When one boy spilled flour across Dominic's sleeve, he apologized repeatedly.
Dominic smiled. “We make messes in kitchens. We clean them up.”
The boy relaxed. I looked away before either of them noticed the tears in my eyes.
Near the end of the class, Nora hurried toward me with her phone.
“Claire. It's Marianne.”
A message had arrived from a number Nora recognized but hadn't heard from in days.
It said: I'm safe for the moment. Don't come looking. The proof is in the bakery's original investment documents. Someone changed the last page after Claire signed.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
I had chosen my own lawyer. I'd read every term. The bakery belonged to me.
Or so I believed.
