“Well, yes. That was the most about it I knew, too. But Shana, um, cut a little higher on the legs than strictly necessary. More, like”—Mrs. Davies’s voice dropped to a whisper—“up there,” she said meaningfully. “I thought she was having her girl time and offered her appropriate products. But no, she was bleeding from her own hand. First time I brought it up, she just stared at me. Not, thank you for offering assistance, no appreciation for someone else trying to look out for her, just . . . nothing. I asked why she hurt herself like that. She shrugged, said why not.

“And that was Shana. There was nothing you could say or do. . . . I’d catch her stealing red-handed, her fingers in my purse. She wouldn’t deny it, just shrug and say, I need the money. Sam, the seventeen-year-old. I caught Shana in his bedroom, twice. They were . . . you know. That’s not allowed, I told them. Sam, now, he got all embarrassed, couldn’t even look me in the eye. But Shana could’ve cared less. She liked sex, she wanted sex and who was I to tell her otherwise? No shame, no remorse, just me, me, me, me, me.

“Within two weeks we were ready to throw our hands up. You couldn’t punish her, you couldn’t reward her. Jeremiah had a schedule for the whole household. Nothing too hard to follow, but enough to provide the kids with a sense of order and consistency. Not Shana. She got up when she wanted, left when she felt like it, came home when she pleased. We tried to ground her. She laughed in our faces and walked out the door. We called the cops on her for theft, she spent the night in jail, then sauntered home no worse for the wear. Nothing we said or did had any impact on her.

“We thought if we just gave it a little more time. We were a good home. Clean house, good meals, attentive parents. And Trevor liked her, as strange as it sounds. I always watched them when they were together—don’t look at me like that! But she was actually good with him. She’d read him stories or draw pictures with him. He was hurting, this sad little boy who’d lost his whole family in a single afternoon. When Shana was with him, that awful smirk would leave her face, and for a bit, she’d seem nearly human. The girl she could be, we kept thinking, if we just tried harder.”

“When did she first meet Donnie Johnson?” Phil asked.