Then the porch went quiet.
The jacket, I understood, had been left on a kitchen chair.
A door.
Patrice’s voice, close to the recorder, sharp, on the phone.
“—no, she doesn’t suspect, why would she, he thinks it’s Kiara. Yes. Four hundred a week is nothing compared to what’s in that account, Marcus, and as long as he’s got a girl calling him Grandpa every Sunday, nobody from the VA is going to ask why his real family doesn’t visit.
The social worker came twice.
Both times a Sunday.
Both times there’s a granddaughter on the porch.
Case closed.
Exactly.
He signed the power of attorney in March. He can’t read what he’s signing, he just asks if it’s for the house. I say yes.
What’s he going to do, Marcus?
He’s blind.”
A pause.
“Kiara? Kiara’s not a problem. I told her he said she was a l*ech like her mother.
