"You should not," Arthur said. "Ask me anything you need to ask me. Check anything you need to check."
"How did he get to you?" Hannah asked.
"He walked into my birthday gala at the Bennett Grand Hotel," Arthur said. "A guard brought him in because he thought the boy had stolen something. Eli would not open his hands. When he finally did, he was holding a silver ring with an oval blue stone. I gave that ring to my daughter Caroline thirty years ago."
Hannah was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was a little less hard, but no less careful.
"Describe the ring," she said.
"Silver band," Arthur said. "Oval blue stone. There is a thin vine engraved under the setting, and one small imperfection near the band where I dropped it on a kitchen tile a long time ago. Caroline would have been seventeen when I gave it to her."
"That matches what Eli told me," Hannah said. "He would not let anyone touch it. He said it was his mother's."
"He did," Arthur said. "He rode a bus with forty three dollars and a schedule his mother had marked, and he slept a night in Port Authority, and he walked into a room full of strangers because his mother told him that if he got to me, he could ask me himself."
"Mr. Bennett," Hannah said, "I have to be plain with you. I have seen people come forward claiming to be family when a child is vulnerable. So I am going to ask you for proof, and I am going to ask you to cooperate with every step of the process, even the slow ones."
"I do not mind," Arthur said. "Tell me what the process requires, and I will do it."
"First, verification," Hannah said. "I will need to confirm your identity and your relationship to Caroline. Second, a home study. A licensed worker will visit your home and make sure it is safe for a child his age. Third, the court. A judge in New York will have to grant temporary guardianship, and Pennsylvania will have to agree to transfer the case. None of that happens in a day, Mr. Bennett. It takes time, and it takes paperwork, and it takes patience."
"I have a lawyer," Arthur said. "Marcus Webb. I will have him call you today, and he will send you whatever records you need. I will open my home to anyone you send."
"Good," Hannah said. "Because I cannot skip steps for you, even if I wanted to. Eli is my responsibility until a court says otherwise. He lost his mother. He left the only home he knew. He ran because he was frightened of strangers deciding things for him. He needs to hear the same thing from all of us, that he is safe and that no one is going to disappear with him."
"He will hear it from me," Arthur said. "I told him last night that nobody touches him without his say so. I meant it."
"Then we may be able to work together," Hannah said. "But I need to see him, Mr. Bennett. I need to see him with my own eyes, and I need to hear from him that he is all right. A phone call is not enough."
"Come," Arthur said. "My door is open to you. You can talk to him alone if that is what you need. You can walk through the whole house. You can ask Margaret anything."
There was another pause, and Arthur could hear papers moving on her end of the line.
"I will need to clear it with my supervisor," Hannah said. "I will need to bring his file. It is a long drive from Philadelphia, but that does not matter. I have been worrying about that boy for two days. If he is with family, I want to know it. If he is not, I need to know that too."
"He is with family," Arthur said quietly. "I know I have to prove that to you and to a judge. I will."
"I hope so, Mr. Bennett," Hannah said. "For his sake, I hope so. I will call you back within the hour with a time. And please do not move him. Keep him where he is, keep him fed, keep him calm, and let him keep that ring where he can see it."
"I will," Arthur said.
"Then I will drive up to see Eli myself," Hannah said.
Chapter 9: The Letters
Arthur waited until the house had gone quiet. Eli was asleep upstairs, and Daniel had gone to his room with the door closed. The brownstone settled into its night sounds, the old pipes, the faint hum of the street outside. Arthur stood in the doorway of his study and looked at the room as if he had never seen it before.
He had always thought of the study as the place where things were kept. The desk was heavy oak, scarred by thirty years of use. The filing cabinets held contracts and deeds and tax records, all in neat rows. If Caroline had written to him, the letters should have been here.
Arthur crossed to the desk and opened the top drawer. Pens, paper clips, a spare pair of reading glasses, a small brass key. Nothing else. He opened the second drawer. Stationery, envelopes, a checkbook he rarely used. He opened the third drawer and found old birthday cards from business partners and a folded program from the opening of the Bennett Grand. No letters from Caroline. No envelopes in her handwriting. No trace of her at all.
He moved to the filing cabinets and thumbed through the tabs. Insurance. Leases. Legal. Personnel. Foundation. Taxes. Nothing but manuals, warranties, receipts. He stood back and straightened his cufflinks, a habit he barely noticed anymore, and felt a cold knot tighten in his chest.
"Mr. Bennett?" Margaret said from the doorway.
Arthur turned. She was still in her apron, her face tired but watchful.
"You should be resting," she said.
"I should be looking," Arthur said. "I have looked in every drawer in this desk, Margaret. There is nothing here from Caroline. Not one letter. Not one card."
Margaret came into the room and set a mug of tea down on the desk.
"May I ask what you are looking for?" she said.
"Proof," Arthur said. "Caroline wrote to me. I am sure of it now. Eli said his mother told him to find me. She told him to ask me himself. That means she believed I would listen. That means she believed I still cared. And if she believed that, then she must have tried to reach me before she died."
"Mr. Bennett," she said, "you remember how the mail worked in this house."
Arthur frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean the post came to the front hall table, and someone sorted it," Margaret said. "For years, that someone was Daniel. He said it was easier that way. He said you had enough to read, with the hotel business and the foundation. He took the pile to his office and brought you what mattered."
Arthur stared at her. "Daniel handled my mail."
"Yes, sir," Margaret said. "He handled it for years. He told me not to bother you with it. He said he would pass along anything personal."
"And did he?" Arthur asked. His voice was low and steady, the way it got when he was holding something back.
Margaret shook her head. "I only saw what he brought to your desk, Mr. Bennett. Bills. Invitations. Business letters. I never saw a letter from Caroline. But I would not have seen it if he kept it, would I? He carried the mail to his own office first."
Arthur sat down in the desk chair, heavily, as if his own legs had decided for him. He put his hands flat on the desk.