Clementine pops her head around the doorway. “All good here?”

“Quick question?” I ask.

She steps into the room. “Sure thing. Shoot.”

“I went from foster care to adoption in about a month. Is that fast?”

Clementine whistles. “Lightning fast.”

“Would there be a reason?”

Clementine’s smile is a thousand watts. “You’re one lucky kiddo!”

“What if it wasn’t luck?” Thomas presses.

Her smile dims several notches. “Not sure what you mean. But I wouldn’t know. I don’t have anything to do with casework.”

I give her an encouraging smile then ask, “Does every foster child get a caseworker?”

“Course they do—sometimes more than one. So many kids, lots of sad stories, some pretty violent ones, too, hard for a mind to take, day in, day out. The job has a significant burnout rate so it’s normal for a foster child to get passed along to a new caseworker. Why do you ask?”

“There’s no caseworker’s name in my file.”

Clementine steps behind me, peers at the file. “Well, I’ll be. You’re right.” She sighs, straightens the pink belt on her dress. “If you saw the stacks of files our caseworkers have on their desks—you can barely see around them. They’re supposed to be responsible for no more than fourteen cases, but the average is about thirty children. Sorry to say it, but they’re only human.”

“I totally get that,” I say. “How long have you worked here?”

“Since 2008.”

“Do you know a caseworker named Heidi?”

Clementine looks up, mentally scrolls through names, then shakes her head. “Nope. Was she yours?”

“I think so.”

Thomas pushes, “Is there anyone who worked here from 1996 to 2002 who might’ve known her?”

Clementine hesitates then says, “Hang on a sec.”

Her pantyhose swish as she strides off. When she returns ten minutes later with a gray-haired, mustached security guard in a pressed white shirt, blue slacks, a gun holstered at his hip, I’m sure we’re about to be ushered out of the building.

“This is Max,” Clementine says. “He’s worked security in this building for, what, thirty-five years?”

“Forty this month,” Max says.

He’s mid-sixties, built like a retired football player with broad shoulders, a thick neck, bulbous nose, and mole beneath his left eye. “What can I do you for, child?” Max asks.

“I was wondering if you knew a woman named Heidi who was a caseworker between the late nineties to early two thousands?”

Max rubs the back of his head. “If I did, would she be in some kind of trouble?”

“No. I’m the one who needs her help.”

He pulls at his mustache. “ ’Cause folks who work in foster care are givers, through and through, not takers.”

Irritation flickers inside me but I smile brightly. “Like I said, I have no intention of doing anything that could hurt her.”

“Good to hear. Never met a kinder soul. Beautiful woman but she never did marry though a buncha fellows tried. Nope. Totally dedicated to the kids she shepherded. Always went the extra mile, wanted the best for each and every one of ’em. Sad day when we lost her.”