Chapter 9 - The Gas Station Camera
I sat on the carpet in the playroom at the sheriff's office and held my bear tight against my chest. The air conditioner hummed too loud and the carpet smelled like cleaner. Through the glass door I could see Marcus talking to the Bodyguard. Marcus had his phone in his hand and his mouth was a straight line. He didn't look at me when he talked, but every few seconds his eyes flicked back to check I was still there.
The caseworker had given me crayons and a coloring sheet with a park on it. I didn't color. I just pressed the brown crayon against the edge of the paper and watched their reflections in the glass. Marcus nodded once. The Bodyguard turned and walked out, his sunglasses tucked into his suit pocket, and Marcus came back and sat on the floor next to me even though his suit pants got dust on them.
"They're just checking a few things for me," he said quietly. "You're okay right here, Emma."
I nodded. I kept both arms around my bear. He didn't ask me anything else.
Across from Lincoln Park there was a gas station with a big red and blue sign. I'd stared at it all morning from the bench while I waited for the sun to come up. The Bodyguard walked in and asked for the manager. The cameras on the corners of the building had watched the park all night and all morning, little black domes that I hadn't noticed.
The manager was a man in a gray shirt with a name tag. He took them to a small office in the back that smelled like coffee and hot dogs. The Bodyguard didn't raise his voice. He showed his ID and Marcus's card and asked for the footage from the lot camera facing the park, from six to eight that morning.
On the screen the parking lot was gray in the early light. At 7:14 a.m. a faded silver sedan pulled to the curb by the park entrance. The timestamp glowed white in the corner. The passenger door opened and I got out. I was small on the screen and my dress looked darker in that light. I had my bear with both arms. Karen didn't get out. She leaned over the seat and said something, then the door shut and she drove away without looking back. I stood there for a second, then walked to the bench under the old oak tree and sat down. I didn't move after that except to pull my knees up.
The manager copied the file onto a thumb drive. The Bodyguard thanked him and slipped the drive into his suit pocket. He called Marcus from the parking lot, and the sun made the gas pumps shine.
Karen was at the apartment when the deputy knocked. She had the door half open and music on inside. The deputy was the same one who had been kind to me the night before at the sheriff's office. He wasn't smiling now.
He held his tablet up so she could see. "This is you at Lincoln Park at seven-fourteen this morning," he said.
I wasn't there, but the deputy later told Marcus what she said while I was in the other room coloring, and Marcus told me just a little of it in a soft voice.
On the video you could see her car and me getting out with my bear. The time was clear.
Karen crossed her arms. At first she said I had wanted to go to the park and that I must have run off. The deputy didn't argue. He just let the video play again. Her car pulling up, me getting out, her driving away, me sitting alone on the bench as cars passed on the county road.
She looked at the floor then. Her voice got quiet.
"She wouldn't stop crying about her mom," she said. "I told her to wait there till the sun came up and I'd come get her. I figured if someone found her they'd think she just wandered off."
The deputy asked her to repeat that. She did. He wrote it down word for word. He told her this was a child neglect and endangerment report and that she was not to contact me. She nodded and didn't ask where I was.
At the sheriff's office they printed the report. I heard the printer working through the wall and the stamp hitting the paper. The sheriff signed it and put the thumb drive in an evidence envelope and wrote the date and time on it. The caseworker came out and spoke to Marcus in the hallway with the door cracked just enough that I could hear pieces.
"No contact order is in place effective immediately," she said. "She's barred from any contact pending the hearing. This and the footage support emergency placement. We'll keep her safe."
Marcus rubbed the back of his neck where his tattoo showed above his collar. His silver watch caught the light. "Does Emma need to hear any of that?" he asked.
"Not the details," the caseworker said. "Not yet."
When Marcus came back into the playroom I was still on the carpet with my bear. Lily wasn't there that day, but her pink bow was on the little table where she'd left it last time and I kept looking at it. Marcus knelt down so we were eye level, the way he had in the park.
"Hey," he said. His voice was gentle and a little rough. "Some grown-ups looked at some pictures and talked to Karen. You did everything right. You don't have to worry about going back there right now, okay?"
I nodded and held my bear tighter. The faint mark on my cheek felt hot.
"Did I do something wrong?" I whispered.
May you like
He shook his head right away. "No. You didn't do anything wrong at all."
He didn't tell me about the gas station or the time on the video or what Karen said. He just sat with me while I colored a little brown bear in the corner of the sheet and breathed slow. Outside the window a sheriff's cruiser pulled out of the parking lot and I watched its lights flash once without the siren, then it was gone.
