I was shaking out the dirt from my nine-year-old daughter Chloe’s backpack on Monday evening when those crumpled bills fell out. Two twenties. I asked her where on earth she got that kind of money, and she just shrugged.

She said a nice lady at her after-school program gave it to her for being a good girl.

Well, let me tell you, my motherly instincts went into overdrive. We pay one hundred and seventy-five dollars a month for this program, so I called them up. The girl on the phone swore up and down that every single worker was background-checked. I just couldn’t shake the bad feeling, though.

So, the next afternoon, I went there early. It was about three-fifteen. I peered through the little glass window of the classroom.

There was a woman I had never seen before, sitting on a tiny chair right next to my Chloe. She was brushing my sweet girl’s hair and taking photos of her on her phone. Three different photos, posing her like a doll.

I didn’t even think. I just marched right in.

I asked her who she was, and she jumped out of her skin. She told me she was a volunteer, but when I asked why she was handing my daughter cash, she grabbed her purse and practically ran out the door.

I went straight to the director’s office and demanded the sign-in logs. The woman’s name was Janet Boyle, and she had been coming there for five weeks. Not a single background check had been run.

The director started shaking as she pulled up the physical application Janet had filled out. I looked down at the paper, and my eyes landed on the emergency contact line.

It was my ex-husband’s name and phone number. Underneath, where the form asked for the relationship to the contact, Janet had written one word. Fiancée.

He couldn’t get visitation rights through the courts, so he paid his new woman to pretend to be a volunteer just so he could get photos of my baby. I am sitting in my car right now waiting for the police, and I honestly can’t stop shaking.

I watched the blue lights of the police cruiser wash over the school’s old brick sign. It was getting dark out, and the wind was starting to pick up. The air had that damp, cold autumn chill that gets right into your joints if you sit still too long. My hands were still gripping the steering wheel so tight they felt stiff. Honestly, I couldn’t stop them from shaking. I kept looking at the rearview mirror, half expecting to see my ex-husband Greg’s car pull up behind me.

Officer Benson was his name. He was a nice young man, probably no older than twenty-five, bless his heart. He walked up to my driver-side window and tapped gently on the glass.

“Ma’am?” he asked when I rolled it down. “Are you Mary?”