Page 62 of Wolf Forgotten

I headed into the mall and then walked out the main entrance where a small blue SUV waited for me. I slid into the backseat and the driver took off to the coffee shop I agreed to meet the man at.

We were just about to the destination when my phone vibrated with a text message from Sara."Where are you?"

"In the bathroom. There's a line. Meet you guys outside the store?"

As soon as I texted, I silenced the phone and slipped it into the back seat pocket as we pulled into the parking lot. I opened my wallet and took out two hundred dollars of the money Cole had given me. "I have an odd request if you're up for two hundred dollars."

The driver, who looked to be an upstanding middle-aged citizen, raised his eyebrow and turned to look at me as he stopped the car. "Is it legal?"

Laughing, I flashed him the money. "Yes. I need you to drive back to the mall, park, and then come back to get me in about an hour."

"Why the mall? I can just wait here."

"Do you want two hundred dollars or not?" My other option was to just abandon my phone and hope I could get it back later.

"You kids these days. Sure, I'll do it since it's not that far." He took the money, and I just hoped he did actually come back.

I slid out of the backseat and walked inside the coffee shop. My hands were shaking slightly as I looked around for Charles. I had done some internet stalking and found his picture on social media.

Spotting him, my pulse raced as I walked to the table he was at. "Charles? I'm Ivy."

He stood and shook my hand before we sat down. "It's wonderful to meet you. It's not often us social workers get to see the children we help find homes for once they’re grown."

He seemed nice enough, and I relaxed back into my chair. I had a ton of questions for him which couldn't be asked when I'd called him the day before.

"I'm so sorry about your parents." He gave me a sympathetic smile. "Now, what questions can I answer for you?"

"Do you know who my parents are?" I assumed Child Protective Services had exhausted all efforts to locate them.

"No one came forward and there were no hospitals or doctors within driving distance that had seen a postpartum woman. We immediately placed you with a foster family while we waited the requisite amount of time to find a home for you."

I hadn't even considered that. "Were my parents my foster parents too?"

"No. Well, not at first." He ran a hand through his salt and pepper colored hair. "You had a good life?"

"Yes. My parents were the best." Using the wordweremade tears well up in my eyes. "I wish they would have told me about being adopted, but maybe they had their reasons."

He shifted in his seat. "Your adoption was a bit atypical."

My breath got caught in my throat. Did he know? "What do you mean by that?"

"About a week after you were found, a man came to see me." He looked around the coffee shop like someone was going to suddenly appear. "You have to understand, I was young, had a ton of student loan debt, a newborn of my own..."

Unease filled me, and I clasped my hands tightly in my lap. "What..." I gulped. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I was assigned to your case and working with adoption agencies to find a permanent placement for you. The man came in and offered me a large sum of money to make sure you ended up far away from here."

What. The. Fuck.

I cleared my throat of the ball of nervousness that had lodged there. "Was it my father?"

He shook his head quickly. "No, I don't think he was. He said he was a friend of your father's but couldn't give me any other information. He also wanted me to keep him updated of where you ended up."

"What was his name?" I was pretty sure my heart had stopped beating.

"He didn't give me a name, and he always came to find me and paid me in cash." He ran a hand over his face. "I found your parents a few weeks later, and once your adoption was official, he stopped showing up."

"Do you remember anything about him?" Arbor Falls was only so big, and hope welled in my chest. I was that much closer to finding out who my birth parents were.

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