The Distraction by Sierra Kincade Page A

detector manned by two security guards. My eyes immediately fell to Juvenile Court, where I had been told to go this morning.
    â€œThanks Terry,” I said before we parted ways. “For all of it.”
    â€œSure,” he said. “Glad I could help. And really, call me if you need anything, all right? I’ll check in from time to time.”
    Under no prompting from my dad, I was sure.
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    After I had stripped all the metal from my body and gotten a stern reprimanding from the security guard about not bringing my keychain Mace into a courthouse, I headed down the hallway toward the family wing. I didn’t go into a courtroom, but a small office filled with crying children and mothers who looked beyond overwhelmed.
    â€œI’ll be back to get you,” one woman was telling a boy, who looked to be about five. His eyes were red with tears, and by the quivering of his lower lip I could tell he didn’t believe her.
    How many times had my birth mother told me that when she’d left me somewhere? She’d said it the last time, too, when she’d taken me to that fast-food playland and overdosed in the parking lot.
    â€œCan I help you?” called the clerk over the crying.
    I was still standing in the doorway. I hadn’t even let go of the metal handle. My grip tightened. What was I doing here? I’d wanted to make a difference in a child’s life, help someone like Alec when he’d been young and lost, but now I wasn’t sure that I could.
    â€œMa’am?” called the woman.
    â€œDon’t be a baby,” said one little girl to her sibling.
    â€œYeah,” I said under my breath. “Don’t be a baby, Anna.”
    I put on my best smile and walked to the counter.
    â€œI’m Anna Rossi,” I said, showing the ID they’d given me in the training course I’d taken two weeks ago. “I’m working with CASA.”
    A hard-nosed woman with tortoiseshell glasses and a million flyaway hairs looked down at a list on her desk.
    â€œI’ll buzz you through,” she said, nodding to a door to my right.
    I stepped over the wooden puzzle pieces and dented plastic stacking rings strewn across the floor, and pushed through the door into another hallway. The woman was already there, and without a word she led me to a closet-sized office crammed tightly with two chairs. I sat and waited, and waited, and waited, my anxiety growing by the second, until a man in his forties with a buzzed head popped in.
    â€œAnna?”
    I jolted up. Smiled brighter than a five-hundred-watt lamp. “That’s me.”
    â€œThis is Jacob. And I’m Wayne.”
    I shook Wayne’s hand, but didn’t see Jacob until I stuck my head out into the hallway. There, a boy about ten or eleven was leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans. His T-shirt was two sizes too big, and his skin was the color of cinnamon.
    â€œHey Jacob,” I said. He didn’t answer.
    Wayne handed me a file that had been tucked under his arm. “I’m Jacob’s caseworker, and he just got done in court. Looks like the judge approved foster care, so I’m going to go look at getting him a placement for tonight. Would you mind taking him for an hour or so? You can go for a walk or something.”
    And so begins the child welfare shuffle.
    â€œNo problem,” I said. A few years ago, I would have been the person finding Jacob a home. It was a little jarring to be in a different role.
    â€œYou can get what you need out of the file. Let me know if you catch any special circumstances I need to know about. Allergies to dogs or whatever.”
    Jacob was twisting the heel of his worn-out shoe into the buffed linoleum.
    Clearly Wayne had a packed schedule, so I moved around him to Jacob’s side.
    â€œI think we’ve got it from here.”
    Still nothing from the kid. This could be interesting. But