Chapter FORTY-ONE

MEREDITH

A few hours earlier…

“There! That’s the last box,” I said to little Sammy, Ellie’s son.

It wasn’t unusual for residents of a shelter to be reticent about sharing their names, but Sammy was too young for that kind of subterfuge. After the first few days seeing me St. Elizabeth’s, he’d lost his shyness.

“Sammy, what do you say?” Ellie chided, kneeling down to help her son look through the small box of toys I’d just set down in his new room.

The fantastic thing about this house was that each of the four floors, plus the attic where Ellie and Sammy were going to stay, were their own suites. My idea was to have single families, or two women without children, on each floor and each floor had its own entryway complete with a door and a lock that could only be accessed with a special code via the keypad.