Chapter 5: The Number Stamped Behind the Seal
I didn't call right away. I sat at my kitchen table with the envelope open in front of me and the girl asleep on my couch ten feet away.
My apartment was small. Second floor, over the laundromat on Main. The windows rattled when the dryers kicked on. I could hear her breathing. She'd curled on her side with her white shoes tucked neatly under the couch and her pink dress bunched around her knees. She hadn't asked to take the bow out.
The number was on the back of the paper, under the seal. Ten digits, printed in small block type with a name above it in the same font: Intake - After Hours. No company name. No letterhead. Just that line and the paper itself, thick like it wanted to look official.
I stared at it until the light outside went gray.
She'd told me on the driveway that afternoon, "My mom signed this last night." And "She took $50,000." And "The men she gave me to" were coming at "Midnight." I hadn't moved the SUV. I hadn't called anyone yet. My watch said 6:42. Five hours and change before midnight.
I got up and pulled my phone from my jacket pocket on the counter. I turned the kitchen faucet on so the sound would cover me, and I stepped into the hallway bathroom and closed the door halfway. I could still see her feet from there.
I dialed *67 first. I'd learned that trick years ago and never had a good reason to use it until then.
The line rang twice and a man picked up.
"Yeah," he said. No hello. Just that.
I kept my voice even. "I'm calling about the paper with the seal. The one signed last night. For the girl."
A pause. He didn't sound surprised. "Who is this?"
I had the lie ready. "Her mom's brother. She asked me to check the details. She wasn't clear on the timing."
Another pause, longer. I could hear a TV in the background behind him and a kid yelling somewhere far off in his house.
"You got the paperwork in front of you?" he asked.
"I do," I said.
"Then you know the timing," he said. "Midnight. At the house. Don't be there if you're not part of it."
His tone was flat, like he was reading an instruction sheet. Not angry. Just practiced.
I swallowed. "I wanted to confirm the address. She wrote it messy."
He sighed. "We got the address. We got the mom's signature and consent. We don't need you to confirm anything. Tell her we come at midnight, we pick up, and we go. No interference."
He said "consent" like it was stamped on the paper too.
I looked through the bathroom crack at the couch. She hadn't moved. Her bow was still bright against the cushion.
"And if she changed her mind?" I asked.
"She took the money," he said. "She signed. That doesn't change."
That was it. He wasn't trying to convince me. He was just stating it as settled.
"Midnight at the house," I repeated, to make him say it again.
"Midnight," he said. "At the girl's address. We got men proximate. Don't try to play family hero. The mom agreed to this."
He hung up before I could say anything else.
I stood there with the phone in my hand and the water still running in the sink. My left hand, the one with the tattoo, was tight around the phone. I forced myself to breathe once, slow, before I walked back out.
I turned the faucet off. The apartment got quiet again except for the dryers below.
She was awake now. She'd sat up and her eyes found me immediately, wide and serious. She didn't ask who I was talking to. She just watched.
I slipped the envelope off the table and folded it shut and put it in my jacket pocket. My heart was still hammering against my ribs.
"Your uncle?" she whispered.
I shook my head and crouched to her level again, the way I had on the driveway. "Wrong number," I said. It was the only lie I could make sound calm.
She didn't believe me. I could see it in how her mouth pulled tight. But she nodded once, small.
May you like
Outside, the streetlights on Main flickered on early. It was 6:49. The collector had said midnight at her address like it was already scheduled, like it was a delivery. And he knew someone had called to question it. He'd logged me as interference.
I sat on the edge of the couch and kept my eyes on the door, listening to the dryers thump below us, counting the hours I had left before I had to be somewhere else.
