Hideaway

is another thing you should probably consider before taking me into your home. You probably have a lot of nice things, being in the antiques and art business, nice things you wouldn't want messed up, and here I am lurching into everything and breaking it or, worse, I get a bursting bladder attack all over something priceless. Then you'd ship me back to the orphanage, and I'd be so emotional about it, I'd clump up to the roof and throw myself off, a most tragic suicide, which none of us really would want to see happen. Nice meeting you.”
    She turned and wrenched herself across the Persian carpet and out of the room in that most unlikely gait— sccccuuuurrrr … THUD! —which no doubt sprang from the same well of talent out of which she had drawn her goldfish ventriloquism. Her deep-auburn hair swayed and glinted like fire.
    They all stood in silence, listening to the girl's slowly fading footsteps. At one point, she bumped against the wall with a solid thunk! that must have hurt, then bravely scrape-thudded onward.
    “She does not have a weak bladder,” Father Jiminez said, taking a swallow from a glassful of amber liquid. He seemed to be drinking bourbon now. “That is not part of her disability.”
    “She's not really like that,” Father Duran said, blinking his owlish eyes as if smoke had gotten in them. “She's a delightful child. I know that's hard for you to believe right now—”
    “And she can walk much better than that, immeasurably better,” said The Nun with No Name. “I don't know what's gotten into her.”
    “I do,” Sister Immaculata said. She wiped one hand wearily down her face. Her eyes were sad. “Two years ago, when she was eight, we managed to place her with adoptive parents. A couple in their thirties who were told they could never have children of their own. They convinced themselves that a disabled child would be a special blessing. Then, two weeks after Regina went to live with them, while they were in the pre-adoption trial phase, the woman became pregnant. Suddenly they were going to have their own child, after all, and the adoption didn't seem so wise.”
    “And they just brought Regina back?” Lindsey asked. “Just dumped her at the orphanage? How terrible.”
    “I can't judge them,” Sister Immaculata said. “They may have felt they didn't have enough love for a child of their own and poor Regina, too, in which case they did the right thing. Regina doesn't deserve to be raised in a home where every minute of every day she knows she's second best, second in love, something of an outsider. Anyway, she was broken up by the rejection. She took a long time to get her self-confidence back. And now I think she doesn't want to take another risk.”
    They stood in silence.
    The sun was very bright beyond the windows. The palm trees swayed lazily. Between the trees lay glimpses of Fashion Island, the Newport Beach shopping center and business complex at the perimeter of which Gujilio's office was located.
    “Sometimes, with the sensitive ones, a bad experience ruins any chance for them. They refuse to try again. I'm afraid our Regina is one of those. She came in here determined to alienate you and wreck the interview, and she succeeded in singular style.”
    “It's like somebody who's been in prison all his life,” said Father Jiminez, “gets paroled, is all excited at first, then finds he can't make it on the outside. So he commits a crime just to get back in. The institution might be limiting, unsatisfying—but it's known, it's safe.”
    Salvatore Gujilio bustled around, relieving people of their empty glasses. He was still an enormous man by any standard, but even with Regina gone from the room, Gujilio no longer dominated it as he had done before. He had been forever diminished by that single comparison with the delicate, pert-nosed, gray-eyed child.
    “I'm so sorry,” Sister Immaculata said, putting a consoling hand on Lindsey's shoulder. “We'll try again, my dear. We'll go back to square one and match you up with another child, the perfect child this time.”

2
    Lindsey and Hatch left Salvatore Gujilio's office at ten past three that Thursday afternoon. They had agreed not to talk about the interview until dinner, giving themselves time to contemplate the encounter and examine their reactions to it. Neither wanted to make a decision based on emotion, or influence the other to act on initial impressions—then live to regret it.
    Of course, they had never