Page 112 of Concealed in Death

She looked back down at the pictures, then sharply up again. “But not DeLonna. She’s not there. They were so close, the three of them. But she didn’t go with them. She stayed with us, stayed until she was sixteen.”

“But you don’t know where she is now?”

“No, and I admit, I expected, hoped, she’d keep in touch. Some of the children do, some of them don’t.”

“Did she ever ask about them? Ask to go see them or contact them?”

Philadelphia rubbed at her forehead. “It’s a lot to remember. I’ve been reviewing my notes from that time, trying to see how...”

She shook her head. “I noted that DeLonna withdrew for a while, claimed to be unwell. Natural enough, when two of her closest friends left.”

“Was she sick?” Eve asked.

“Lethargic, according to my notes, and my memory. Weepy, though she tried to hide that. In session, when I was able to get her to open up a little, she talked about being one of the bad girls. Everyone left her because she was bad; she didn’t have a real home, a real family because she was bad. We worked on her self-esteem. She had such a beautiful voice, I was able to use singing to bring her out a bit more. But she never bonded with any of the other girls in the same way. And, as I said, she withdrew, went into a kind of grieving, which was natural, expected. She spent her free time in her room, and was, well, too biddable if you understand me. She’d simply do whatever she was assigned, then go back into her shell. It took nearly a year before she seemed to resolve herself.”

“Didn’t you question the fact neither of her friends made an effort to see her, to hang with her?”

“Lieutenant, children can be self-absorbed and their world is often... immediate. It’s the here and now, so the bonds formed inside The Sanctuary, or now HPCCY, can be strong, lifelong, or they can be tenuous, situational bonds, that dissolve once the situation changes.”

“And you don’t follow up?”

She lifted her hands—short, neat, unpolished nails, no rings, no bracelets. “We’re a transitional home, and most often for a relatively short time. Often the children and their guardians prefer to leave that behind, start new. We don’t interfere.”

“So when they walk out the door, that’s it?”

By the way Philadelphia’s shoulders stiffened, the little barb struck a nerve. “We give the children in our care everything we can, physically, spiritually, emotionally. We do everything in our power to see that when they leave us, they leave in a better state, and go prepared to lead a productive, contented life. We feel deeply for them, Lieutenant, and on a professional level we understand they’re only ours for a short time, so we have to let go. For their well-being, and for our own.”

“But you interact with them every day, basically live with them.”

“That’s correct.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. My brother and I share duties, responsibilities. We founded both The Sanctuary and HPCCY together.”

“So you’re partners, in a sense.”

“Yes, in every sense.”

“But you’re the one with a business degree, with business management training.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So you deal with the finances.”

“At HPCCY, yes, primarily.”

“How did you let the other place tank so bad you literally walked away from it?”

The faintest color spread over her cheeks. “I’m not sure how this applies.”

“Everything applies.”

“We overextended,” Philadelphia said shortly. “Emotionally and financially. We simply believed in what we were doing, and wanted to do so much we neglected the practicalities. Actually, I got the management training during the last year we had The Sanctuary as we realized we were in trouble in that area.”

“So before that, you just fumbled along. What, hoping for a miracle?”

Both her eyes and her voice went very, very cool. “I understand not all believe in the power of prayer. We do, even when the answer to that prayer isn’t clear or seems hard. In the end, our miracle came. We’ve been able to help many more children, give them much more care, simply because we initially failed in a practical, business sense.”