Chapter 18
“When I got out of the shower,” explained Jenny Myers over the phone, “Adriana was just gone.”
“Why would she run away?” Sharon asked weakly, disheartened by this news. She pushed aside literally ten pounds of paperwork on her desk. “She liked your home.”
Jenny began crying. “I know. She has no one to call family but me. I don’t know why she would leave.”
Sharon felt absolutely horrible. This precious girl was too innocent, too sweet, too vulnerable to be out in this hostile world alone. Old feelings of loss threatened to take Sharon away, but she gripped the phone tighter and demanded, “There has to be a reason, something that would motivate her. Think, Jenny.”
“I don’t know. She’s been so happy here.”
“Has there been anything in the last week that upset her?”
Static rose on the line as Jenny’s sobbing escalated. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. I just don’t understand. I’ve tried my best and—”
“I know it’s terrible. Stay with me, Jenny.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just … go ahead.”
“Anything upsetting to Adriana?”
“She was sad when Cindy left.”
“That’s normal. You say it’s thirty minutes Adriana’s been missing?”
“About.”
“Hopefully she’ll wander back. In the meantime, call the police and have them make a report. We have to do everything by the book, for Adriana’s sake.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Call me back as soon as you find out anything.”
“I will.” With three more sobs, Jenny hung up. Silence filled the receiver. Adriana had no reason to run away. Sharon’s stomach burned. She opened her desk drawer, retrieved a bottle of Tums, and chewed three large tablets, tasting the chalky fruit flavor.
Sharon reported the missing girl to her supervisor and then called the county social worker, but only got the voicemail. She dialed several numbers to find out who the duty worker was that day and told him about Adriana’s situation. She wrote down the contact information from the phone calls in Adriana’s office file, wrote down the date she contacted the county office in her agency tracking form, and began writing a special incident report on the computer regarding the situation.
But then she stopped.
The calls and paperwork were bureaucratic nonsense, which would not help Adriana in any way. The only thing they accomplished was to help remove her agency from further blame if it were investigated or taken to court regarding this lost child. Rosebud Foster Care could offer the court documentation that proved they were compliant and responsible within reasonable limits. But that would not bring back Adriana.
Sharon leaned back in the chair, trying to figure where the girl might have gone. Maybe she had a friend in the neighborhood, someone she wanted to visit, and hopefully would return. If Adriana was sad her foster sister left, could she have walked to Cindy’s house? It’s possible. They lived close enough. But Adriana knew she shouldn’t go places unsupervised. She knew foster children had to be supervised by people fingerprinted with the agency wherever she went unless it was to school. Adriana wasn’t a kid who broke rules. She always did her chores, finished her homework and turned it in, never had any behavior problems at school, despite other children teasing her—this rebellious run just didn’t fit.
Sharon eyes rose to the corkboard above her desk. Among foster parent fee rates, duty worker days, dates of emergency on-call weekends, were some pictures of bubble people—cute, plump, simple drawn people by a foster boy several years back. They had inspired her, given her reason to continue her hard work, like this boy had done in spite of terrible burns all over his body.
The phone on the desk rang. She considered not answering. But because of its potential of being related to Adriana’s disappearance, Sharon picked it up.
Laif spoke on the line. “The Brewsters haven’t been home since I got here at eleven. I first checked the grandparents' house, but only the Greenwiches were there.” He paused. “You there?”
“Yeah. Sorry, just lost in thoughts.”
“I’m hungry. Can you pick me up a burrito?” Laif had called in sick today so that they could keep surveillance on the Brewsters. He worked as a secretary at an art gallery in Orange, which Sharon still found difficult to believe, such an ordinary job for an extraordinary person.
“Okay. Call me on my cell if you see something, anything. I’ve got a crisis here I’m dealing with.”
She picked up her work bag, gathered her keys and purse, and looked at her wristwatch. It was 12:30 p.m. She figured if she got lunch afterwards, it would take fifteen minutes to get to Jenny’s home in Pomona. Because of unpredictable Los Angeles traffic, she got there in about twenty-five minutes.
She paced Adriana’s room.
Jenny stood at the bedroom doorway, looking in. “Why did it have to be Adriana? Why her?” She shook both her hands in the air then placed them over her red freckled cheeks. “For God’s sake, she’s only got one leg.”
The foster mother appeared sincere—her sorrow at the loss of the foster child—but there was something that didn’t feel altogether honest.
Adriana’s crutches were gone, but her closet was full of clothes; her bed wasn’t made, and her pajamas were nowhere to be found. Adriana always made her bed. It was as though she had woken up and walked out of the house.
“Has she ever gone anywhere only in her pajamas?”
Jenny rubbed her cheeks. “Ah, no. Never.”
“You bought them for her two months ago when I asked you to, right?”
“Of course,” Jenny said in a louder voice.
A funny odor was in the bedroom. It smelled like rotten eggs. This smell had never been in the room before. She felt dizzy, and then sneezed.
She went to the bathroom. Jenny followed.
The girl’s toothbrush and toothpaste were on the counter beside the sink. Sharon touched the toothbrush. Dry. She opened the right drawer. Inside were Adriana’s hairbrush, nail clippers, and body lotion. She pulled back the shower curtain and saw shampoo and soap on the rack. Rosebud Foster Care was tight on rules, and one of them was that shampoo had to be locked because of the danger it posed if swallowed. Sharon understood that some of these rules were ridiculous to live by, making the kids feel more like they’re in prison than foster care, and she had never pressured foster parents about unlocked shampoo. “Adriana sure didn’t pack heavily.”
“I don’t even think she showered,” Jenny said. “Look.” She bent down and touched the bottom of the tub. “It’s dry. She’s usually meticulous about showering every day. I think it’s because she’s so self-conscious about her body since –”
Anxious to focus on finding the girl, Sharon interrupted, “How long were you in your shower for?”
“Oh ... I don’t know. About fifteen minutes maybe.” Jenny quickly turned away, straightening some towels that were already straight on the rack.
Sharon walked back into Adriana’s bedroom. She looked inside the closet again. According to Jenny, all of Adriana’s shoes were there except for the white tennis shoe. Two months ago Sharon had done a clothing inventory for a quarterly report to Adriana’s county social worker. The girl had five shoes, not pairs but just individual shoes for her right foot. Sharon circled the bed and saw a white tennis shoe halfway underneath Adriana’s bed. She reached down and picked it up. Four right shoes were in the closet; so all the girl’s shoes were accounted for.
Adriana wasn’t the kind of girl to leave her bed messy. But she especially wouldn’t run out of the house without a shoe on her foot.
The girl valued her only remaining foot and had expressed fears about it being bruised or cut—somehow made imperfect like her left stump of a leg. So what could have happened for her to leave without a shoe? Adriana had no natural family who wanted her back. No pre-adoptive parents who might steal her away. In fact, it was difficult to get anyone interested in handicapped children. If someone did kidnap her, why? The foster mother certainly wouldn’t pay a ransom. The state wouldn’t pay. And who would be brazen enough to come into the house when an adult was present?
“Do you have any relatives that might have stopped by today?”
Jenny shook her head. “Sometimes my brother comes by, but he’s vacationing in Arizona right now.”
The rotten-egg smell came back, drifts of it catching in her nose.
She saw something small and brown on the floor by the closet. She picked it up: an elaborately decorated wood chip. She recognized the pattern but couldn’t place where she’d seen it before. “You know what this belongs to?”
Jenny examined it. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before.”
In the back of her mind, she knew where this wood was from. It just wasn’t coming forward.
The smell of rotten-eggs grew stronger.
Jenny was a bit of a neat freak. She usually washed clothing twice a week, sheets and bed linens three times a week, vacuumed two times a week, and steam cleaned the carpets every month. Why did it stink in here?
As Sharon paced, she noticed it was worst by the green throw rug in the middle of the room. Sharon leaned over it for a closer inspection and became dizzy again. Strange, but she lost all her thought of the wood-chip’s origins. Even stranger, she began to feel different in some way. She almost lost her balance.
The foster mother grabbed Sharon’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Evidently picking up on the stench as well, she apologized, “Sorry. I don’t know why it smells.” She went to the bathroom, retrieved some potpourri scented spray, and sprayed the room emphatically.
Sharon coughed and walked out, stuffing the piece of wood in her jeans pocket.