Leah
At 5:18, I broke my promise to Carol.
Not on purpose.
That was how half the bad decisions at Haven House started. Not with someone being careless. With one more form. One more call. One more client who needed five minutes that became twenty because fear did not care about office hours.
Maya sat across from me in the conference room with her phone face down on the table and a stack of housing forms between us.
Most of the staff had gone.
Carol was at a meeting two blocks away with our attorney and a city contact. Sharon had left at five after telling me, twice, that the front door was locked and she would haunt me personally if I propped anything open.
I had laughed.
Now I wished I had not.
“You don’t have to finish this tonight,” I told Maya.
She looked down at the paperwork
