They Made the Orphan Clean Their House. She Was Quietly Counting Their Lies.

That was the frightening part. She just turned the pages of the notebook one by one, reading every number, every date, every line Maisie had written about the Cole Minor Trust.

When she reached the last page, she stood up, walked to the fireplace, and turned on the gas.

She dropped the notebook into the flames.

Then the workbook.

Maisie watched the cat on the cover curl up and turn black.

"You are a very confused little girl," Darlene said. "You don't understand money. You don't understand anything. And if you ever, ever tell anyone these lies, I will call the state and tell them you're a thief and a liar, and they will send you to a group home in Dayton where nobody will ever find you. Do you understand me?"

Maisie nodded.

"And your so-called grandmother?" Darlene smiled. "She's a crazy old woman who abandoned your father when he was a baby. She doesn't want you. She wants the money."

"There's barely any money left," Maisie said.

The slap of Darlene's hand on the kitchen counter was so loud that Maisie jumped.

"Go. To. Bed."

Maisie lay on the yoga mat in the dark and did not cry.

She closed her eyes and opened the notebook.

Not the real one. The one in her head.

Page one. March 3rd. $4,200. Cole Minor Trust to Pruitt Family Checking. Memo: pool deposit. Page two. March 19th. $11,750. Memo: Brittany horse. She saw every line. Every number. Every date.

At two in the morning, she sat up, pulled a stack of Sparkle Clean receipt paper out of the laundry basket, and began to write.

By five, she had rewritten all forty-one pages.

Every single number was exactly the same.

The next morning, before school, Maisie went out to take the recycling to the curb.

There was a loose board in the fence between the Pruitts' yard and the old house next door. She had noticed it a year ago. She had never used it.

She knelt down and pushed the folded pages through the gap.

On the other side, a hand in a brown cardigan sleeve took them.

"I wondered when you'd come," said Judge Walter Harlan.

Maisie peered through the gap. He was sitting on an overturned bucket, leaning on his cane, reading.

He read for a long time. Then he looked up, and his eyes were wet.

"Did you write all of this from memory?"

"She burned the real one."

The judge was quiet. "Maisie, this is enough to start an investigation. But a judge, a real one, still on the bench, is going to want proof. The actual bank statements."

"I know the password," Maisie said.

He closed his eyes for a second. "I'm a retired judge. I can't tell you to do that."

"You didn't," Maisie said. "I did."

On Wednesday, Darlene went to the salon. Ron was at golf. Brittany was at dance.

Maisie sat at Darlene's computer in the home office and logged in.

Her fingers were steady. She downloaded two years of statements and sent them to the printer. The printer was the slowest machine in the world. Page one. Page two. Page fourteen.

At page thirty, a car door slammed in the driveway.

Brittany. Home early.

Maisie grabbed the stack, shut down the computer, and slid under the desk just as the front door opened. She held her breath. Brittany's pink sneakers walked past the office. Stopped. Walked back.

Then Brittany's phone buzzed, and she ran upstairs, squealing at whoever was calling.

That night, forty-two pages of bank statements went through the gap in the fence.

"Saturday," the judge whispered. "Go to the Olympiad. Win it if you can. And leave the rest to me."

On Saturday morning, Maisie woke up at six. She braided her hair. She put on the cleanest shirt she owned.

At 7:30, she went to the laundry room door to leave.

It didn't open.

She tried again. The knob turned, but the door wouldn't move. Something was jammed against it from the outside. A chair, maybe.

"Aunt Darlene?"

From the other side of the door came Darlene's voice, light and cheerful.

"We're going to Brittany's dance competition in Cincinnati, sweetheart. We'll be back tonight. Oh, and I took your shoes. You won't be needing them."

The front door slammed. The car started. The engine faded down the street.

Maisie stood in the silent laundry room.

The Olympiad started at nine. Westfield High School was three miles away.

She looked up.

Above the dryer, near the ceiling, there was a small rectangular window.