Chapter 3 - The Child in Room 12
By 8:00 AM, the sun had burned through the Chicago smog, casting long golden beams across the opulent marble floors of the Callaway Grand lobby.
Donovan walked out of the private elevator, his black overcoat slung over one arm, his expression a mask of cold, unbreakable focus. But as he crossed the lobby, his steps slowed.
He looked toward the concierge desk.
Brett the concierge saw him coming and immediately stepped forward, looking anxious. “Mr. Ree. Regarding the child—Child Protective Services arrived an hour ago. They placed her in temporary emergency foster care downtown. They’re processing her paperwork now.”
Donovan stopped dead in his tracks. “Where?”
“St. Jude’s Family Services on Michigan Avenue. Why, sir? Are we—”
Donovan didn't answer. He turned on his heel and walked straight back toward the underground garage.
Forty-five minutes later, Donovan’s black sedan pulled up in front of the brick facade of St. Jude’s Family Services—a dreary, overcrowded county facility that smelled of floor wax and institutional desperation.
He didn't knock when he reached the intake office. He simply turned the brass doorknob and walked in.
A middle-aged social worker with tired eyes and a stack of manila folders looked up from her desk, frowning. “Sir, you can’t just walk back here. This is a restricted area—Are you Donovan Ree?”
“I am,” Donovan said, pulling a folded legal document from his breast pocket and placing it squarely on her desk. “And that is an emergency petition for temporary emergency guardianship, signed by Judge Harrison twenty minutes ago.”
The social worker snatched up the paper, her eyes scanning the judicial seal and the notarized corporate backing. Her jaw dropped slightly. “Mr. Ree... you’re filing for emergency custody? You realize what this entails? A background check, a home suitability review, and a financial audit of your personal life?”
“Do it,” Donovan said flatly. “Start the background check right now. In the meantime, I’m taking the child home.”
“Mr. Ree, protocol dictates—”
“Protocol,” Donovan interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, “can wait in the hallway while I walk out that front door with Mave Callaway. Where is she?”
Ten minutes later, Mave sat in the back seat of Donovan’s sedan, clutching Gerald Too so tightly her small knuckles were stark white. She wore the same mismatched shoes—one white sneaker, one navy—and her oversize coat hung off her thin shoulders like a shroud.
She stared out the tinted window as the city slid past in a blur of gray concrete and steel.
Donovan looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not going to a foster home, Mave,” he said quietly.
The little girl didn't turn around immediately. She slowly lowered the stuffed elephant, turning her small, solemn face to meet his eyes in the glass.
“Is that because you know someone?” she asked. Her voice was too small, too careful.
Donovan pulled the car to a stop at a red light, turned around in his seat, and looked directly into her eyes. The scar on his jaw seemed to tighten, but his gray eyes were steady.
“Yeah,” Donovan said, his voice rough around the edges. “I know someone. Me.”
Mave considered this for a long, quiet moment. She looked at his broad shoulders, his black coat, the stark lines of his face.
“Are you still going to be scary?” she asked.
A slow, humorless ghost of a smile touched the corner of Donovan’s mouth.
May you like
“Probably,” he said honestly. “But I don't let anyone throw elephants away.”
Mave nodded, satisfied. She reached down, adjusted Gerald Too’s crooked plastic eye, and leaned back against the leather seat.
