Emily breathed carefully.
“Why?”
“Because I was told the emergency shelter was unsafe and children needed to move before the roads closed.”
“Did you believe that?”
“At first.”
Lena took out a folded program from a county emergency conference.
Inside was a photograph of Philip Stowe standing with an Eastward executive called Warren Pike.
Pike had owned a private transport company before converting it into a crisis-services contractor.
He was now dead, according to Lena, but his contracts survived in a dozen county archives.
“What happened to the children?” Emily asked.
Lena looked at the memorial wall.
“Some were reunited quickly.”
“And the others?”
“Eastward classified them as unclaimed evacuees.”
“They had families.”
“I know.”
“Peter had a mother.”
Lena nodded.
“I watched his mother arrive at the transfer desk.”
Emily’s anger rose so quickly she had to grip the bench.
“Did you tell her where he was?”
“They told me the receiving location was confidential.”
“And you believed them?”
“I was young enough to mistake paperwork for protection.”
She opened the grocery bag and withdrew a narrow notebook secured with a rubber band.
It contained dates, initials, transport routes, and the names of clerks who signed the receiving forms.
Lena had kept it because the official files began changing after the flood.
She had tried to report discrepancies and was told that criticism of the emergency response would hurt families waiting for help.
“So you kept a notebook for twenty years,” Emily said.
“I kept it because I was ashamed to destroy it.”
“That isn’t the same as helping.”
“No,” Lena answered.
“It isn’t.”
Emily accepted the notebook but refused to promise Lena secrecy.
The older woman seemed relieved by that refusal.
She directed Emily to a page marked February twenty-one.
On that day, four children had been driven from Mercer Hill to a building near Port Ashland.
The entry contained the initials P.V., A.S., and two numbers.
“Do you know their new names?” Emily asked.
“Not all of them.”
Lena pointed to the receiving signature.
It belonged to a woman named Ruth Pell.
Ruth had operated a group home, and Eastward paid her in cash for emergency placements.
“Where is she now?”
“She died nine years ago.”
Emily felt the familiar frustration of reaching another dead end.
Lena turned the page.
“Her daughter ran the home with her.”
The daughter’s name was Marian Pell.
She lived in a coastal town north of Erie.
“Will she tell us anything?” Emily asked.
“She was the one who sent your mother the note about Mercer Hill.”
