Oh, come the fuck on! How many of us did similar things as kids? What about the kid who shot me with a BB gun? What about when I scratched a girl because she said I wouldn't (similar story years later with a different girl and a cigarette)? More progress in the sissification of youth.

Too close to home. From the same county, teen shelter, request for boot camp, penchant for running away...

On March 18, 2004, Amanda jots down a note in a logbook that's part of Hanna's file: "Message from Christine Montessori, Hanna's step mother. She said a national missing persons report has not been done yet and Hanna has been missing for six months now. She said she will call [my] supervisor if [I don't] call her back today."

~snip~

"Do you know where we can find her?" Amanda asks. "I just want to find her."

"All we know," Maxine says, repeating information she already shared with Amanda three months earlier, "is she might be in California."

When Amanda gets back to the DFACS office, she returns the call from Christine in Maine. Nearly a week has passed since Hanna's stepmother called with the news that Hanna's profile needed to be entered into the national missing children's database.

Now, Christine tells Amanda that to list Hanna as a missing child, all DFACS has to do is give the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children the police report number associated with Hanna's case. DFACS has the number on file. Amanda says she'll talk to a supervisor to find out if she can hand over the information.

Nine days later, Amanda e-mails her supervisor, Susan Waddell: "I received a call from Hanna Montessori's step mother saying that we did not file missing persons on Hanna nationally. ... What should I do? She wants me to call ... and give them the case number filed by the police."

The supervisor brings up the issue with another DFACS official. A month passes. Nothing happens. DFACS doesn't send Hanna's information to the database. Christine doesn't hear back from Amanda.

Soon, however, Amanda and others at DFACS will learn there's nothing more they can do for Hanna.