“Where is it?”
“State people took most of it.”
Leo’s expression changed.
“They took it?”
“To your placement.”
“Oh.”
He was quiet.
Sully understood.
“You thought it was gone.”
Leo looked embarrassed.
“Yes.”
“People stealing from you a lot?”
Leo did not answer.
Sully nodded slowly.
“Right.”
The five minutes ended.
Before leaving, Sully said:
“I know a garage in Phoenix.”
Leo looked up.
“Club garage?”
“Partly.”
Angela immediately said:
“No.”
Sully looked toward her.
“I hadn’t finished.”
“You were going to say he can sleep there.”
“I was thinking it.”
“No.”
Leo laughed.
Sully pointed at Angela.
“See what I deal with?”
She folded her arms.
“You met me six hours ago.”
“Longest six hours of my life.”
But the idea did not disappear.
Over the next two weeks, investigators interviewed every teenager currently or previously placed with Hank.
One spoke.
Then another.
Then three more.
Their stories differed in details but matched in pattern.
Excessive labor.
Threats.
Food withheld as punishment.
Violence.
Money.
Fear of retaliation.
Hank’s foster license was suspended almost immediately.
Financial investigators reviewed how state funds had been used.
Large gambling transactions appeared.
So did payments inconsistent with the care Hank claimed to provide.
Deputy Higgins’s name appeared too often.
His phone records showed repeated private contact with Hank.
Internal investigators discovered that Higgins had previously returned runaway teenagers to Hank without documenting allegations they made.
He had also accessed information outside his assigned cases.
Higgins was suspended.