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not fail.
    He stepped into the front office and clapped a hand on Caleb’s back. “How’s the computer, buddy?”
    “A pile of junk.” Caleb squinted into the screen as he spoke his familiar refrain.
    “Hey, get on the Internet and see if you can dig up a little dirt on somebody for me—her name’s Ana Burns.”
    “There’s no modem on this old thing, sir, and I—” Caleb glanced up, saw the woman, and then laughed in embarrassment. “Oh, hey there, Miss Burns.”
    “Hello, Caleb.”
    “I thought you wanted to talk to Terell.”
    “I intended to, but it looks like I’m stuck with Uncle Sam.”
    The teen grinned. “Lucky you.”
    “By the way,” she addressed Sam as they walked down a short hallway to his personal office. “My name is Anamaria Cecilia Guadalupe Burns, and you won’t dig up any dirt on me. I’m clean. Your dog can vouch for that.”
    “Your name…you’re Hispanic?” he asked, pulling the door shut behind him and pointing her to a chair.
    She stood statuelike, eyeing the room, her knuckles white on the handle of her purse. Then, moving suddenly, she turned and jerked open the door. With two quick paces, she stepped to the chair and sat, her hips on its edge as though she intended to leap up at any moment.
    “I prefer the term Latina, ” she said, flipping open her reporter’s notebook. “My mother was born and raised in Mexico. My father’s ancestors came from Scotland. I grew up in Brownsville, Texas, graduated from UTB with a degree in English and worked at the Brownsville Herald before moving here five months ago.”
    “Ah,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk.
    “And you?”
    “Wyoming.”
    “What brought you to St. Louis?”
    “Haven.” He straightened a stack of papers, tamping the edges before setting them back on his desk. “I thought this interview was about lead paint.”
    “And I thought you wanted a broader story.”
    “You don’t need my background for that. Write about the kids. Most live in government-subsidized housing projects. Few have a father in the home. We have a mix of African-American and Caucasian, but we—”
    “So I’ve observed.” Her eyebrows lifted like a pair of raven’s wings. “Sorry to interrupt, but would you mind if I asked the questions?”
    Sam leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across his stomach. The lady was a major pain.
    “I like your office, by the way,” she said, brown eyes flashing from one side of the small room to the other. Long dark lashes curled up almost to her eyebrows. “Orderly. Neat. But you ought to clean the front area. That pile of wet towels is sprouting mold.”
    “Would you like to take over management of our laundry room, Miss Burns?”
    “It’s Ana, and the posters are peeling off the walls out there, too. That office is a wreck.”
    “We have lead paint in our laundry room,” he informed her. “I can’t let the kids work there anymore, because the paint is peeling even worse than those posters out front. So our towel mass is becoming critical, and we could use an adult to help out.”
    “I’m not that into laundry,” she said. “I send most of my clothing to a dry cleaner.”
    He sat back and studied her. “Ah. A dry cleaner type.”
    “Do you have a problem with dry cleaners?”
    “I have a problem with people taking up my valuable time discussing wet towels.”
    She picked up her notebook. “When did you meet Terell Roberts?”
    “At LSU. We both played basketball there.”
    “And then you turned pro?”
    “He did. Played for the Magic and the Clippers. I went into the military. Marines.”
    “Ah,” she said. “A Marine type.”
    He couldn’t hold back a grin. “Not a Marine type. A Marine. I brought that training to Haven, because I believed if I could teach discipline and respect, the kids would benefit.”
    “So you contributed the military atmosphere, while Terell came up with the seed money to start the operation.”
    “Haven is a team effort. We