Chapter 12
The community center parking lot had one tall light near the entrance, even though the sun was still up. It made a pale circle on the pavement beneath it. I stayed inside that circle while Ms. Bell called the local sheriff’s office.
Alessandro stood beside me, not in front of me this time. His shoulder touched mine when the wind moved through the lot, but he didn’t put his hand on me. Rabbit’s left ear was tucked beneath my chin. I kept rubbing the seam where the money had been hidden.
Ms. Bell ended the call and slipped her phone into her coat pocket.
“They’re sending a deputy,” she said. “He’ll meet us here.”
Mrs. Vega looked toward the road. “Do you want to go back inside?”
I looked at the community center doors. Behind the glass, people moved through the lobby carrying folders and paper cups. It was bright inside, and no one could close a private door without another person seeing.
“Stay here,” I said.
Alessandro nodded. “We’ll stay here.”
The words settled something in my chest. Not all the way. Just enough for me to breathe without counting.
A sheriff’s SUV turned into the lot a few minutes later. The deputy who stepped out was a woman with a brown braid and a notebook tucked under one arm. She introduced herself as Deputy Ruiz. She didn’t crouch down or use a baby voice. She looked at Ms. Bell first, then Alessandro, and finally me.
“Who needs to make the report?” she asked.
Ms. Bell held up the folder. “I do. I’m the director here. We have security footage, a suspected attempted isolation of a child, and evidence connected to an ongoing incident.”
Deputy Ruiz’s eyes moved to me and then back to Ms. Bell. “Is the child in immediate danger?”
Alessandro took one breath before answering. “We don’t know. That’s why we’re here.”
I watched Deputy Ruiz write that down.
The report took place in a small meeting room with a window facing the parking lot. Ms. Bell sat on one side of the table. Deputy Ruiz sat across from her. Alessandro pulled out a chair for me but didn’t tell me to sit. I chose the chair closest to the window, where I could see the light and the SUV.
Mrs. Vega brought water in a paper cup. The rim bent when I squeezed it.
Deputy Ruiz asked Alessandro to explain what had happened at the office. He spoke slowly. He told her the woman had claimed he sent her. He told her the woman knew about Rabbit and had tried to get me to enter a private office alone. He didn’t call the woman a kidnapper. He didn’t say he knew what she wanted.
He only said what he could prove.
Ms. Bell provided the printed still image and the saved security video. Deputy Ruiz watched the footage on a laptop. The woman entered through the side door, crossed the lobby, and disappeared toward the office corridor. Four minutes later, she left through the same route.
The dark car appeared at the edge of the second camera’s view.
“Can you identify the driver?” Deputy Ruiz asked.
“No,” Ms. Bell said.
“Can you identify the woman?”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened. “Not by name.”
Deputy Ruiz paused the video. The woman’s badge hung backward against her clothing. Her face was turned away from the camera.
I remembered the soft voice. The way it had said Rabbit’s name like it belonged to her.
Deputy Ruiz looked at me. “Emma, I’m going to ask you one question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I held Rabbit closer.
“Did she touch you?”
“No.”
“Did she threaten you?”
I looked at Alessandro. He stayed still. He didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head.
“She said Alessandro sent her,” I answered. “And she knew about Rabbit.”
Deputy Ruiz wrote both sentences exactly.
After that, she asked whether I wanted a break. I said yes, and no one argued. Alessandro took me into the hallway and sat with me beneath a bulletin board covered in drawings. One showed a crooked yellow house with three windows.
“Did I say enough?” I asked.
“You said what you knew,” he replied.
“What if it wasn't enough?”
“Then we keep the record open. We don’t make you guess.”
When we returned, Deputy Ruiz gave Ms. Bell an incident number. She wrote it on the folder beneath the date and time. The number looked small, but it changed the room. The woman’s actions were no longer only something adults whispered about in hallways.
They had been placed somewhere official.
Outside, the parking lot light began to matter more as evening came. Deputy Ruiz asked Alessandro where we would sleep that night and who would have access to me. He answered carefully, giving no private details until Ms. Bell confirmed them.
Before we left, Deputy Ruiz handed Ms. Bell a card.
“If she contacts either of you again, save everything,” she said. “Don’t respond unless instructed. If she appears in person, call us immediately.”
Alessandro accepted the card.
I looked through the glass doors at the road. A dark car passed the entrance without slowing. I couldn’t see the driver.
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But this time, someone else had seen it too.
Deputy Ruiz turned her head toward the road and wrote down the direction.
