By dawn, Vale had filed a motion challenging the guardianship order. A judge agreed to hold a same-day hearing, but the hearing would only decide where Noah and Eli could stay while the case was investigated. The court couldn't untangle years of missing funds in a single morning. That meant the boys still needed protection, and the records still needed to be found.
Caleb met Vale outside the church carrying Arthur's notebook in a padded envelope. He had slept perhaps forty minutes. Caleb kept his hands flat against the courthouse bench so Noah would not see them trembling. Ruth listened carefully.
Mrs. Patel brought hot coffee and made him eat a banana before she would discuss plans. She had seen enough exhausted volunteers make reckless decisions to know that hunger could masquerade as courage. At the courthouse, Victor arrived beside a woman in a navy coat who introduced herself as a representative of the family placement agency.
Their attorney described Noah and Eli as neglected minors found wandering in dangerous weather. He submitted photographs of the children outside the diner, hoping the court would treat their homelessness as evidence against anyone who tried to keep them nearby. Noah testified briefly. He explained that he'd taken Eli out of a temporary boarding house because strangers had entered their room and searched their bags.
They had been told they were going somewhere new, but nobody would say where. He did not cry until the attorney asked why he hadn't stayed with his father. "Because nobody will tell us where he is," he answered. The courtroom went quiet.
Vale produced Marisol's death certificate and the later affidavit bearing her supposed signature. Victor claimed he had merely witnessed an administrative form prepared by an agency employee. The judge asked why he had not verified the signer's identity. Victor said he trusted the agency, then looked toward the woman in navy.
A brief recess followed. Reed approached Caleb at the hallway vending machines with a development that changed their strategy. An investigator had located a set of storage rooms in the old Westbridge basement that had escaped demolition because they lay beneath the adjoining municipal garage. Room 217B had once housed the building's emergency electrical records.
The garage was scheduled for renovation that afternoon. "We can ask the court to preserve it," Reed said, "but the order may take hours." Caleb looked through the courthouse windows at a line of construction trucks moving down Main Street. He imagined everything Arthur had recorded being hauled away as ordinary debris. Then his phone rang.
The caller ID showed Victor's office, but a stranger's voice answered. "You found his notebook," the voice said. "Now leave the basement alone.