17

After reading to the kids in Miss Dawkins’ room, Nate headed to the principal’s office. He stuck his head in. “Am I interrupting you?”

“Yes, you are. You’re stopping me from the endless mountain of paperwork.” She stood. “So you are a very welcome interruption.”

“I know what you mean. It seems as if that’s all my job is these days.”

“What can I do for you, Nate?”

“I was in Miss Dawkins room and—”

“Let me guess. You’re concerned about Charles Wright. Right?” The look on her face told him he was busted.

He nodded. “OK, let’s not play games. Angelina Matthews came to me with some concerns. But I’ve got to tell you after talking with little Charlie, I share them.”

She sat back down. “Fine, tell me about it.”

“He tells me he used to have another name. He remembers being called Carlos but he can’t remember his last name. And his mother told him that it was a secret name. That he shouldn’t tell anybody about it. That’s a little odd, don’t you think?”

“Sometimes kids go by cute little nicknames until they start school. Or some of their family calls them one name while others call them something different. It’s not really out of the ordinary.”

“I suppose. But I’d like to take a look at his records anyway. If you don’t mind.”

She tapped her index fingers together forming a moving steeple. “I’m not sure if I should do that. I mean the records are private.”

“Instead of me looking then why don’t you have a look? See if anything stands out to you.”

“I guess I could do that.” She hit some keys on the computer. “Mmm. That’s interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“No birth certificate. No previous school records. The only documentation the mother gave us was her current electric bill. To prove she lived in the district.”

“Isn’t that odd?”

“A bit odd, but sometimes that happens. Parents lose or don’t have one initially, and have to order it from wherever the child was born. We take the child into the system, and when the parent receives the BC, they bring it to us. Hold on a minute. Maybe my assistant forgot to scan them. Let me check.” She walked out of the office but was back within a few minutes, holding a paper file. “According to Darlene, when the mother registered Charles, she’d explained that the office that had her child’s BC had a fire and the records were destroyed. And he was a kindergartener at the time so he hadn’t been enrolled in any other school before. A few states still don’t have mandatory kindergarten. The mother promised she’d get a copy of his medical records sent to us.”

“But she never did, right?”

“Never did.”

“I thought you had to have proof of immunizations.”

Margaret nodded and looked through the papers in the file. “They are here, but they were done in town by a local doctor. And only after we asked for them.” She looked up at him. “It’s not as if she did anything wrong. She followed the law but…what do you think it means?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I’ll look into it and let you know. In the meantime, let’s keep this between ourselves.”

An hour later Nate stared at the computer screen in his office. No info on Charles or his mother, Bonnie Wright. There didn’t appear to be any social media presence for either of them, a rarity these days.

When he’d asked Charles about the name Carlos, he’d told Nate that he couldn’t remember any other part of the name. Nate went to the missing child network. The FBI kept a database of every missing child in the country. He typed in the name CARLOS.