The story starts off in a car traveling from Las Vegas. In the car Carley is in the back while Mrs. MacAvoy, the social worker, is in the front seat driving. The story keeps going staying in the car while Mrs. MacAvoy tries explaining that the family she is staying with, it's their first time with a foster child so she needs to be on her "best behavior". When the car arrives at the home of the Murphys. The house is told to be like "television shows with the perfect families. With a white picket fence out front." The home isn't given the exact location of it, but it is located somewhere in Colorado. The family is placed in the "perfect neighbor hood, with the perfect families lined up and down the streets." Carley doesn't think she would ever to be able to fit in here, but stranger things have happened.