“She’s soulless,” Mrs. Davies stated immediately. No emotion, just matter-of-fact. “Oh, the number of kids Jeremiah and I had taken in by then. Troubled kids, sad kids, angry kids. Boys and girls, all ages. We thought we’d seen it all, could handle anything. We were arrogant. Pride is a sin, and the devil sent Shana to be our undoing.”

“Did you have other kids at the time?” Phil asked.

“Three others. An older boy, Samuel, who was seventeen and had stayed with us for three years. Jeremiah had taken him under his wing, had taught him carpentry. It’s an issue with the system, you know. The kids turn eighteen, and that’s that. The state turns them loose, ready or not. The older boy, Sam, he was nervous about what was to come. But Jeremiah thought he could get him a job with a friend. And we’d told him he could stay with us; he was like our son. Didn’t matter what the state had to say. We weren’t turning our backs on him.”

“Do you still hear from him?” D.D. asked.

“Yes. He lives in Allston now. Comes by when he can. Course, everyone’s so busy these days. And carpentry’s not the job it used to be. He travels a lot, to find work. I don’t see him, maybe, as often as I used to.”

I noticed that on her lap, Mrs. Davies was clutching her hands so tightly, the knuckles had gone white. One of the cats, a gray one, nudged her. She obediently stroked its back. On my own lap, the orange tabby was purring away, a strangely soothing backdrop for such a troubling conversation.

“And the other kids?” Phil continued.

Mrs. Davies rattled them off. A little girl, eight, most beautiful mocha skin, who’d been there for only two months, then had bounced back to her crack-addicted mother. Plus a five-year-old boy, Trevor, whose parents had died in a car crash. The state had been working on locating other members of his family who might be willing to take him in. In the meantime, he was set up with the Davieses.

“And then Shana, of course. The state had warned us she was a problem child. She’d already been in six or seven homes in the past two years, which is never a good sign. Problems getting along with other kids, problems with authority. A cutter.” Mrs. Davies paused. “You know what that is, right?”

“She used razors to cut her arms and legs,” D.D. supplied.