"It's three o'clock on a Friday afternoon. You want me to stand here on hold with the Secretary of State?"
"I want you to believe me."
"I'd like to believe you. I'm trying to." He held up the three things in his left hand, fanned out like a poker hand: the paper with no picture, the plastic card with the wrong name, the little white card from a program he'd never heard of. "Let me tell you what I've got, so you understand where I'm coming from. I've got a call about a woman matching a description standing at a school fence, away from where the parents stand, watching the playground. I make contact and she's got a temporary license with no photo, in a name she's had for two or three weeks. She's got an older license with a different name and a picture that doesn't look like her. She gives me a post office box in a city she doesn't live in and tells me she can't tell me where she does live. I ask her why she changed her name and she says personal reasons." He let his hand drop. "If you were me. Honest. What would you think?"
She looked at him. She did not answer, because the honest answer was that she would think exactly what he was thinking, and she could not say that. Behind him, over his shoulder, she could see the building. Third window from the left. Blinds half up. Construction-paper leaves. It was 2:57 by the clock on the bank down the hill, which she could just see from here if she leaned. She did not lean.
"I'm going to run your name," he said. "Your new name. That all right with you?"
"Yes. Please. Run it."
He keyed the mic on his shoulder and turned his head toward it. "Fourteen."
"Go ahead, Fourteen."
"Can you run me a female for a driver's license return. Last name Garvey, G-A-R-V-E-Y. First name Brooke, B-R-O-O-K-E." He read the date of birth off the paper. "And then I'm going to have a second one for you, last name Hatch—"
"No," Brooke said.