Page 73 of Last Seen Alive

“Because you’d overreact like you are about to now for heaven’s sake. She was seventeen when she came here, practically an adult. She stayed with us from the time she was seventeen until eighteen.”

“No one else wanted her,” Albert said. “I know that sounds harsh, but we weren’t her first placement. But then her father had killed her mother so that would screw up any kid.”

“You mentioned Claire was quite smart. Did she do well in school?” Amanda asked.

“She got As and Bs,” Sylvia said.

It would seem Claire had coped at school even while dealing with the loss of her mother, at the hands of her father, no less. Otherwise her grades would have been far worse. “You said you thought she was seeing someone, Mrs.Hamilton. What gave you that idea?”

“I picked up the phone a couple of times, and she was speaking to a guy.”

“Sylvia,” Albert barked.

“Well, she could have just been friends with him.”

“Then why hold back from mentioning this to me? Oh, you thought I’d overreact.”

Sylvia threw her hands in the air as if to say,Bingo!

“Did you ever catch what they were talking about?” Trent asked.

“It’s been a long time.” Sylvia smiled at him. “You’re really testing my memory. Let’s see…” Sylvia tapped her chin in a dramatic show of summoning recall.

Amanda and Trent remained quiet while Sylvia collected her thoughts. Albert helped himself to another beer and returned to the table.

“Something about work if I remember right,” Sylvia eventually said.

“So he worked with her?” Trent asked.

“I’m guessing so.”

“You heard the word ‘work’?” Amanda inquired.

“I just got thatimpression… Something about an order that was coming into the gallery for a gala that night. He wanted to make sure that Claire had handled it a certain way. Don’t ask me now how that was to be…”

It sounded to Amanda that Claire served as more than a “sticker girl” even as a teenager. “You’re doing great. But how did any of this make you think they were seeing each other?”

“I asked Claire about the guy, and she blushed fierce and ran out of the house. It could just have been a crush on her side, I guess.”

“Did you know she was working at a gallery in Washington while she lived here?” Trent asked.

“Yes, of course. She had the job before moving in here. I dropped her off there a couple of times when she was called in to help with events. That’s mostly what she did. Otherwise an hour’s drive would have been too much to do on a daily or more regular basis.”

“And I laid down the law, weekend nights only,” Albert said.

Amanda thought Albert had a tough edge to him, but she didn’t sense that he was hostile or even a drunk. He was just one of those people who saw things black and white.

“They must have really liked her there, though. We didn’t have to drive her more than a handful of times. They sent drivers for her most of the time,” Albert added. “Which I found strange.”

But you allowed it, Amanda thought. Claire wasn’t even an adult yet, but they let her go with other adults. “You meet who they sent?”

“Nah.” Albert shook his head, not seeming to see anything wrong in that he hadn’t cared enough to check.

“Sometimes we had Brianna take her.” Sylvia took the first sip of her coffee.

“And who is Brianna?” Amanda asked.

“Another girl we were fostering at the time,” Sylvia said.