Summary

In “What Happened to Samantha,” Samantha “Sam” Quinn and her sister, Charlotte “Charlie” Quinn, were practicing for a relay race under the watchful eye of their mother, Harriet “Gamma” Quinn. They failed to pass the relay baton properly because Charlotte looked back. Samantha stumbled, and Gamma cursed. When Gamma stomped off in frustration toward the “higgledy-piggledy” (ix) farmhouse, Samantha thought that despite their differences, she and Charlotte were thinking the same thing: “I want to go home” (ix).

Eight days before, someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the front window of the red brick house in which Samantha, 15, and Charlotte, 13, had grown up. They were staying at the farmhouse until an agreement could be reached with the insurance company. It was suspected that the girls’ father, Rusty, had invited the fiery incident with his habit of taking cases that inflamed...