Summary

In Case #5243, Piper Goldstein, a woman who had been a social worker for child protective services for more than 20 years, was interviewed by police in a homicide case. These sections of the novel are narrated from the first person point of view of Piper. Piper told officers that she had never thought the Bauer family, who had fostered Janie, would be involved in something as terrible as what was happening. She also told the officers that she had believed the break in the case would provide the family with some answers.

In Chapter 1, told from the first person point of view of Hannah Bauer, Hannah was working as a nurse at Northfield Memorial when Janie was brought into the emergency room. Since the ambulance was being escorted by a police car, Hannah knew the case was a bad one. Later, Hannah heard...