We continued down the street, me still looking over my shoulder, my sister with an expression that was once more impossible to read upon her face.

Chapter 35

SHANA’S FORMER FOSTER MOTHER, Mrs. Davies, was defiant.

“So she’s escaped. What can she do to me? Ruin my sleep, damage my reputation, make me wish I was no longer alive? She’s already done all that and more.”

“Can we come inside?” Phil persisted. “Take a look around?”

The old woman finally complied, floral housecoat whirling around her ankles as she bustled down the narrow hall. She moved with more energy today than yesterday, D.D. noted. Rage had that effect on people.

D.D. walked through Mrs. Davies’s home, while Phil conducted a quick sweep of the external perimeter. Outside there wasn’t much land, given how tightly together the Boston houses were constructed. Inside, D.D. could say the same, given how much stuff Mrs. Davies had crammed into her family’s home. Personally, D.D. thought there was barely enough room for Mrs. Davies inside the house, let alone an escaped killer.

They reconvened with Mrs. Davies in the rear of the house, finding her sitting on the sofa, stroking a black-and-gray tiger cat.

“Can you think of anyplace Shana would go?” Phil asked.

“Please. It’s been thirty years. How many people have come and gone? Not even the city is the same, post–Big Dig and all.”

D.D. and Phil exchanged glances. Fair enough.

“Mrs. Davies,” D.D. spoke up. “Yesterday you mentioned a foster girl, AnaRose Simmons, who was moved by the state after Shana’s . . . incident.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Davies’s expression softened immediately. “She was so beautiful. This pretty little thing, but so shy. Barely spoke two words, but sweet, very sweet.”

D.D. had been thinking about it all night. She liked Samuel Hayes, and his posting of items on a murderabilia site definitely bore checking out. But if they were looking for a female . . . what about a little girl returned from a loving foster home to her crack addict mom’s care due to Shana’s transgression? Such a thing certainly would’ve pissed D.D. off.

“Have you heard from AnaRose at all?”

“Oh, no. I never followed up. I told you that.”

“What about her, trying to get in contact with you, once she was of age?”

Mrs. Davies gazed at her sympathetically. “It doesn’t work like that, dear. You think it might. But the number of kids I’ve seen. Most come and go, and when they go, they’re gone. That’s what the lifestyle does to them. They don’t cling. They live only in the present, for they’ve learned the hard way, it’s all they have.”

D.D. frowned. “And AnaRose?”

“I don’t know what became of her. If anyone would, it might be Samuel. He was like a big brother to her. They might have kept in touch.”