Throwaway Children

One shove, one bribe, one boy who never comes home. When fifteen-year-old Barrett Baldwin is sent "just for the weekend" to Common Ground for the Future, a residential treatment center in upstate New York, his mother Katelyn expects a hard lesson, not a hospital vigil. By Monday, the ambulances are gone, the doors are taped, and a doctor calls it an accident. A fall from a bunk, they say. The autopsy whispers otherwise. Katelyn turns to Paul Baskin and Lana Franklin of Saratoga Edge Investigations. What begins as a grieving mother's plea becomes a hunt through spreadsheets, sealed offices, and small-town politics. Referral fees sit in tidy ledgers. A sergeant cashes quiet checks. Judges and lawyers circle the same trough. Former residents carry scars, and an ex-clinician hints at the rot behind the therapy talk. Paul and Lana chase names from Clifton Park to Mechanicville, collecting stories, confronting the cop who steered Barrett into the system, and following money that should have cared for kids. Each page peels back a new layer, each interview tightens the vice, until one truth stands clear. Barrett was profitable. Barrett was never safe. Throwaway Children is a suspense thriller cum political mystery that burns with heart. It is about the price of looking away, and the courage it takes to look closer. You will meet a team built on friendship, a mother who will not be managed, and a community wrestling with what justice means when the system itself is guilty. Perfect for readers who love relentless puzzles, mystery books about small town, and characters you want to stand beside. Part of The Saratoga Chronicles, this novel will leave you angry, hopeful, and desperate to talk to someone you trust.