“What about the child?” I ask. I thought he’d recorded that bit, but maybe I’m wrong.
“What about him?” Cannon shrugs. “He lives there. This is probably a weekly occurrence. Let’s not drink our own Kool-Aid. A burglary claim from an annoying neighbor who calls with something every other day isn’t exactly evidence. And a mom and kid? Yeah, they got ushered inside along with the baby daddy. If there was a news van outside my house, I’d be doing the same thing. No weapons, no violence. As far as a story, this is a whole lot of smoke.”
I’m smart enough to give Cannon a what are you gonna do smile instead of arguing, no matter how much my blood is heating with outrage. Glancing at my watch, I mark the time. Whether or not this “burglary” is serious, a chronic delay in police response to a neighborhood is something that needs to come to light. Carefully. Factually. Professionally.
Making myself a mental note to pull the public records on 911 statistics and response times, I nod toward the house. “I’m going to canvass the neighbors, see if they have anything to say.”
“Not a bad idea. A good sob story goes a long way. But…just as a matter of professional courtesy, lemme tell you, this isn’t the type of street where you want to be knocking on doors and asking for testimonials on drug-dealing neighbors.”
No, but it is exactly the kind of street to be asking for testimonials on police response. And not from Mrs. Frobisher.
Cannon yawns. “If we’re lucky, this becomes a hostage situation and we all get the story. If not, this will die on the vine.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right, but we don’t all have a pretty camera, so…” I let my words trail off with a light little shrug. The last thing I want to do is burn professional bridges, but I’m not going to stand around, hoping for a hostage situation. If I’m working, I’m working.
Leaving Trent Cannon and his cameraman, who are set up a good hundred yards from the residence, I cross the street to get a better look. I’ve only met a few people in the neighborhood, but I think the house next door is the one with the shy tween I see flying her drone after school. I don’t know the girl’s name, but we wave to each other a lot. A connection. A start.
As I make my way to the tween’s house, which is right behind the peeling red two-story, I catch sight of something flashing in the window. A gun. My heart stops, my chest tightening as I drop to my hands and knees, pressing myself against the house’s wall. Who knows what the guy might do if he sees me out here. All right, this was a stupid idea.
Just when I manage to force a breath into my lungs, the neighbor’s Rottweiler rushes to the fence, barking his head off and scaring the bejesus out of me for the second time in as many minutes. I barely keep from squawking, my heart flying into my rib cage. And it’s a good thing I do, because the window beneath which I huddle opens a moment later.
“Shut your fucking dog up or I’ll do it for you,” a man hollers, slurring. “No respect for any goddamn person on this fucking street.”
I flinch as I hear the sound of something breaking, my mind flashing back to a cheap flower vase my mom kept buying at the dollar store over and over. The memories make me light-headed for a moment, but I pull myself together enough to focus. I need to get out of here. Quietly. Quickly.
Still on my hands and knees, I breathe quietly through my nose until the sounds at the window recede, then start edging away, staying close to the wall.
A thud sounds inside the house, as if something weighty has been dropped. Then the distinctive mewling cries of a child. I go motionless at once, holding my breath and lying flat in the tall unkempt weeds that pass for a lawn around here. Nausea washes over me as the sobs continue, the helplessness of the whimpers drilling a hole down to my core. Because I’ve been that child. Wounded and alone. Injured by a man who was supposed to keep me safe.
Despair tightens my throat as shouting rises again, the arguing adults yelling over each other while a set of little feet patters down the steps. Something that sounds frighteningly like a screen door squeaks open, and the childish sobbing becomes clearer. Outside. The child is outside. Just around the corner of the house from me.
Heart hammering in my ears, I edge around the corner toward what passes for a backyard. The child is there, a little boy with a bloody lip and an arm bent at a bad angle, curled into a ball by a sprawling bush. His jeans and polo shirt are ripped and stained, and he’s crying into the ground as if afraid of making too much noise. Of bringing worse things down on himself.
Staying low, I rush over to the child, crouching beside him. The adrenaline pumping through my body makes my hands tremble as I touch his shoulder. “Hey there, buddy,” I whisper. “My name is Sky. I’m a friend. I live just a few blocks from here. What’s your name?”
The child jerks towards me, his brown eyes wide and fear filled. He looks about seven, with skinny ribs and shaking shoulders. “Zack,” he whispers.
I stretch my arms out to him. “How about we go somewhere safe, Zack? Just for now. Can we do that, buddy? Can we go somewhere until the adults are done fighting?”
He nods cautiously, and I pull him toward me, my heart squeezing when he holds back a whimper over his arm. He’s been around long enough to know when not to attract attention. Though it technically makes me a kidnapper at this point, I hoist Zack onto my hip, murmuring some nonsense about ice cream flavors that I hope keeps both of us calm. As the boy burrows his head into my shoulder, I take my first shaky steps toward the sidewalk.
“What the fuck?”
A man in jeans and a dirty undershirt rushes out into the yard, his scruffy face looking werewolfish in the evening gloom. Throwing a beer bottle against the tree, he flashes a set of broken teeth before ripping Zack from me. Or trying to. The child cries out, but clings to me with a strength I’d not expected.
Grabbing the boy by his hair, Undershirt wrenches Zack away from me on the second try, flinging the child to the ground. Behind the bastard, a pair of other muscled thugs spills into the yard, the second one holding a baseball bat at the ready.
“Who’s the bitch?” one yells as Undershirt grabs and hurls me into the wall of the house.
14
Sky
For a moment, I don’t hear anything but a dull noise of impact and the cracking of the wooden siding. Then pain explodes in my face and shoulder. Before I can shout, the man pulls me back and—because slamming me once wasn’t enough—he does it again. This time, the house siding separates, splinters driving into my skin.
I scream. Dizziness sweeps over me, Zack’s pained crying in the background echoing my own gasps. Zack. I need to get Zack out of here. Somehow.
“Fucking bitch. Who do you think you fucking are?” Grabbing my arm, Undershirt throws me into the ground, the motion so violent that I feel something give way in my shoulder. Pain shoots through me, blazing down my arm and shoulder and back as I crash down on my injured arm.
I shriek then. I can’t help it.
And someone else shrieks too. My eyes widen as four shadows spill into the yard, the one closest to the baseball-bat guy taking the weapon away from him with a single powerful jerk before driving it right into the man’s gut. Another of the shadows spin kicks Undershirt, flattening the bastard to the ground. A third kneels beside Zack, speaking to him with a deep, soft voice.