Losing Hope (21 page)

My office building sat on a quiet and desolate street on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore. I never liked going into it after hours. On weekdays I was never one of the last ones to leave, especially in the fall and winter, when the days got shorter and sunlight disappeared. Coming to the building on a Saturday night was even creepier. Ernie the guard was not there, and the only way to get into the building was by entering a pass code into the front door. I'd never used it before, and as I punched in the numbers, I wondered if a camera was recording my entrance.

I did not care. I even looked up at the corners and the ceiling of the main lobby, imagining a hidden electronic globe capturing my mission of determination. I was not doing anything wrong. I just wanted information.

I was up on the fourteenth floor, standing outside the entrance to Holding Hands Agency, within mere minutes. Using my keys, I opened the front office door, walked through the narrow hallway, and then unlocked the secure room where charts for every single client and foster family we worked with were stored. Due to Ava's diligent efforts to ensure the agency operated at superior efficiency, I knew it would be a cinch to grab the Monroes' chart containing all the paperwork and history of their interactions with the agency. I stepped into the cramped room, which smelled of old paper and cardboard boxes. Despite Ava's commitment to proper storage and organization, she still kept things old school. There were no computer records. Just old-fashioned files, boxes, and binders.

I walked to the file cabinet where the files detailing our foster families' lives were kept. Quickly finding the folder labeled
LMN
, I fingered through the charts to find the Monroes.

“Lacy, McDonald, Miller, Nevins.” I read and reread the alphabetized names on the chart labels. “Miller, Nevins . . . Where is Monroe?” I tapped my finger at the place where their chart should have been.

Charts were never out of place in the chart room at Holding Hands. If a chart was not where it belonged, it would be clearly signed out on the sign-out sheet Ava kept near the door of the secured room. I headed to the corkboard by the doorway, where the sign-out sheets hung, and flipped through them. There was no record of the Monroes' chart being taken out of the room.

“That's odd. Where could it be?” I wondered out loud, noticing the echo my voice made in the tight room.

I was about to leave the room when something out of place caught the corner of my eye. At the back of the room was an old desk that we sometimes used to peruse charts when there was no rush or need to check them out, like reviewing a chart to remember a court date, a birth date, an important name or address.

Usually the desk sat empty, except for the occasional coffee mug or stress ball that a coworker accidentally left behind. Tonight, however, there was something else on the small, shaky desk.

A chart.

And it was open.

Instinctively I knew it was what I had been looking for, and my gut feeling was proven correct as I neared it and saw the large black
M
on the side of the chart tab.

Monroe, Horace and Elsie.

The chart had been left open at a peculiar place, I noted, the part of the file that listed the hobbies, recreational activities, and interests of the foster family; and most of the activities listed for the Monroes had something to do with Second Zion Tabernacle. I skimmed the opened page.

 

 

I looked through the list one more time, chuckling at the interest in crocheting listed for Mrs. Monroe. I realized I had done my best to dispel those grotesque, faceless crocheted dolls of hers from my memory. I did not appreciate the reminder. I shook my head. I was glad, however, to be reminded that Horace Monroe was an expert home restorer by Elsie Monroe's reports. I remembered her saying that their current home had been a fixer-upper, which Horace had renovated.

“I wonder where they lived before?”

The question prompted me to flip to the demographic section of the Monroes' chart. To my surprise, several addresses existed. Before the Monroes moved to their present residence, they appeared to be hopping from one home to the next. The thought perplexed me until I looked again at the demos of the couple and was reminded that Mr. Monroe had been a career home renovator. With the housing market in the fluctuating state that it had been over the past decade or so, he had probably made out well buying broken-down homes and fixing them up to make them livable again.

I skimmed through the required home studies that had been completed on the residences, as they had served as foster parents at each. Though I was not sure what it was I was looking for, nothing unusual jumped out at me. For good measure, I jotted down each of the addresses, using a notepad and pen that had been left next to the chart, and then turned my attention back to the other sections of the tabbed folder.

“Foster history.” I read aloud the next section. “They really are dedicated.”

As I flipped through the pages, I had to admire the Monroes' commitment. The pages I glanced through confirmed that they had fostered over fifty-seven children for days, weeks, or years at a time over the past two decades.

I skimmed through the list of names, which had been abbreviated for confidentiality purposes, noting that a Tremont S. had been in their care from 1994 to 1996. That would have made the handsome music director around sixteen or seventeen years old at the time he lived with the Monroes, I estimated. I looked at the names following his: Kiana L., Breena J., Nadira P., Simone R., Therese K., La'Quayla M. . . .

“Wait a minute.” I flipped through the rest of the list. “These are all girls' names.”

I thought back to Dayonna's room at the Monroes' house. I remembered thinking even then that the elderly couple must have taken in only female foster children, as the overly girly decor of the room would have turned off the average boy. My suspicions were confirmed when I noted that Tremont had been the last male they'd welcomed into their home.

He really must have been a handful for them not to take on any more boys following their time with him. I shook my head and chuckled at the thought.
Unless there is another reason.

I put the chart down and headed back to the shelves where client cases were stored.

“Tremont Scott, where are you?” Even as I asked the question aloud, I realized that I knew the answer.

Ava Diggs's biggest technological advancement for her company had been when she decided to archive old client files in a smaller format, as space had become an issue in the cramped chart room. I was still in graduate school when I helped her with the monumental task of organizing charts—many of which were over a couple inches thick—and getting them ready for a private company to put them into microfiche form.

Yes. Microfiche.

Despite everyone's best efforts to persuade Ava that the records would probably be better off in a digital format that could be read by any computer if need be, she was adamant that the old charts be treated much like documents in a library and converted into a format that she would not have to take a class to understand. At the time she did not know a flash drive from a floppy drive, so we all had to go with the flow. After a long, painstaking, and expensive process, all the files from 2000 and before were converted to microscopic images that could be seen only with the desktop reader she kept in a closet inside her personal office. The microfiche films were in that closet as well.

Both the closet and her office were locked with keys only she had.

I went back to the desk where the Monroes' chart still sat and picked up the pen and the notepad where I had written down their previous addresses. I wrote down Tremont's name and circled it, reminding myself that I wanted to learn more about his past. Even he had acknowledged that he had one.

Another thought entered and left my mind, and as I was searching to remember it, something else caught my attention.

Keys were jingling in the main door of the office suite.

“Oh, no.” My heart began pounding as I ripped off the sheet of paper where I'd made my notes. I closed up the chart, leaving it where it was, and dashed out of the room. As quickly and as quietly as I could, I locked the door of the chart room and ran down the hallway to the office that Sheena and I shared. My hand was on the doorknob, ready to open the door, when I heard my name being called from down the hallway.

“Sienna, what are you doing here?” Ava looked at me with a raised eyebrow. She was wearing jeans and a hefty-sized sweatshirt, and a bag from a sub shop was clenched in her hands.

“Oh . . .” I let go of the doorknob. “I left something in here the other day that I need.” I quickly tried to think of something that could be in my office to take with me so that I would not appear to be lying.

How far off the road had I fallen?

“Well, since you're here, can you help me carry this?” She held out her food bag, which I took, and then she reached back behind her in the hallway for a small box stacked with books and charts.

“I can carry that box if it would be easier,” I offered, seeing the obvious strain on her face as she balanced the box between her arms.

“No, child,” she grunted. “I got this.”

As she pulled the box closer to her, I noticed that all the books and charts were set so that their titles and labels could not be seen. The fact that she nearly pushed her bosom over the small box seemed to validate my suspicions that she wanted the contents of her reading material to be known only to her.

“Can you unlock the door to the chart room?” she huffed.

My heart skipped a beat, but I reminded myself that I had no reason to be worried. How would she know I was ever in there today? I smiled and nodded, pulling out the same key I'd used earlier.

“I've got some charts to review and thought I'd get it done before the hustle and bustle of a new workweek begins,” she said, answering my unasked question as she dropped the box on the floor of the chart room and began sliding it with her foot across the room.

“I was here earlier but had to run and get something to eat. You can set my food down right over on that desk.” She pointed a finger but then immediately frowned.

The Monroes' chart was where I had left it—where I had found it—but it was closed.

I remembered at that moment that it had been open when I first found it.

Ava had been studying the Monroes, and now she was studying me, a hint of fear surfacing in her eyes.

“So, Sienna, I know this past week has been hard on you. Are things better now?” She was fishing for answers, for information, for something, but doing it in such a way as to avoid tipping me off about her intentions. I decided to do the same.

“Yeah, it has been kind of challenging this week, but I'm moving forward.” I gave my best smile, hoping that she would just think that she'd closed the folder on her own. If I avoided acting awkward, then she'd have no reason not to believe that I was at the office for the purpose I'd stated.

I wanted more information before I talked to her about Dayonna, but she, apparently, was ready to bring up the issue herself.

“I'm researching Dayonna and the Monroes since I took you off the case. I'm going to handle this one myself.” She nodded casually at the closed folder as I sat down her bagged sub. The scents of mozzarella cheese and a hearty Italian sauce wafted through the greasy brown bag.

“That makes sense,” I replied. And it was true. There was no reason that her looking through the Monroes' chart would be odd, uncalled for, or suspicious.

Except that the chart had been opened to a page connecting the couple to Second Zion. And Tremont's name was in their history. And disturbing texts were being sent to all involved. And now the music director, the couple, and the client in question were all gone.

Of course, I could not tell her any of these facts without providing an explanation as to how I found out.

I'd rocked the boat so much, the whole thing was tipping over.

“Roman's okay?” She blinked, changing the conversation, I got the sense, for both of our benefits.

Except her question was a loaded one of its own.

“Hmmm.” Is all I could get out.

“Why don't you take Monday off too?” she said a little too quickly, and she knew it. “I mean, if you think it would help with whatever is going on with Roman. I can tell he's got you worried about something.” She let out a nervous chuckle.

Was she that eager to keep me away from Dayonna and the Monroes?

I was not used to having such a strained conversation with my mentor and friend.

“Um, I'm having dinner with him tomorrow at my mom's house, with my sister and . . . and a friend.” The thought of Leon sitting at my mother's table warmed me for a brief second. “Hopefully, with all that backup help, I'll have him straightened out before the weekend is over.”

“Oh, okay.” She nodded and offered a broad smile. “Just let me know. About Monday.”

She quieted and stood still.

“All right.” I backed up toward the doorway, realizing that she was waiting for me to leave. “I will let you know.”