I do, though. I live here—and bring my daughter here—voluntarily.
“Have you found the boy?” I ask.
“No one is missing a child,” Jackson says.
“What?” I say.
“Some parents said they saw boys matching your description,” Cooper says. “They just didn’t see one wander off.”
“Because it was busy. A packed playground with plenty of kids who look like him.”
Jackson opens her mouth, but a look from Cooper stops her.
“I know what I saw,” I say.
“A boy pulled into an SUV,” Cooper says.
I relax. “Yes.”
“You heard someone call to the boy from an SUV. He ran to it. Willingly ran to it. Yes?”
“Right, but then he freaked out. He shouted ‘no’ and began screaming for his mom as a man dragged him into the vehicle.”
“Is it possible . . . ?” He shifts on the sofa. “You have a little girl. I’m sure you’ve needed to carry her to the car once or twice, when she’s overtired, overstimulated, kicking and screaming bloody murder.”
“That’s not—”
“Kids love the playground. They hate to leave it. There can be screaming. A good parent doesn’t drag their kid into the car like that. Unfortunately, questionable parenting isn’t illegal.”
“That’s not what it looked like at all. Are you sure no one saw anything?”
“A couple of parents saw you,” says Jackson. “They noticed you jog past. With a man.”
“What? Oh, right. I wasn’t with him. He was just . . .”
“Just what?” Jackson says when I trail off.
Hitting on me. That’s what I was going to say. Then I realize how it sounds. Yeah, so this guy told me I was stretching wrong and running wrong, but I’m sure he was just coming on to me. Really.
These officers already think I’m delusional. That won’t help.
“He was talking about stretches,” I say. “I was busy watching the little boy, so he took off.” I stop and look at Cooper. “He would have seen the boy. He must have. He said he jogs through the park at lunchtime, too. I could—”
“Parents said they see you there quite often,” Jackson cuts in. “Hanging around the benches, watching them, watching their kids.”
That throws me, and it takes me a second to recover and say, “Yes, like I said, I work nearby, and I jog through the park. I do my stretches near the playground. At the benches.”
“There are other benches in the park, Ms. Finch.”
I cut off a snippy reply and say, evenly, “I used to be a stay-at-home mom, and I miss being with my daughter all day. Stretching in the playground helps me cope.”
I’m baring more of myself here than I like . . . and it doesn’t cut me one iota of slack with Jackson, as her eyes narrow.
“You make some of the other parents uncomfortable,” she says.
“What?” I’ve misheard her. I must have.
“How would you feel, if you took your kid to the playground, and you kept seeing this woman there, hanging around, with no child in tow.”
My cheeks blaze. “It’s not like that. I stretch near the playground sometimes. That’s all.”
“And you watch the kids.”
“I . . . I guess I do. While I stretch. I just . . . I enjoy seeing kids play.”
“Do you know how often we hear that, Ms. Finch? Every time we question a pedophile for hanging around a playground.”
My heart slams into my throat. “Wh-what? No. I have never—”
“No one’s accusing you of that.” Cooper glares at his young partner. “We’re just pointing out how it could look.”
“And that if you were a man, this would be a very different conversation,” Jackson says. “Personally, I don’t think gender should play a role in how we handle these complaints.”
“There was a complaint?” My voice squeaks.
“No,” Cooper says. “A couple of people mentioned it, but we all know parents can be overly cautious. You might want to run somewhere else, though, in future.”
Humiliation swallows my voice, and it takes a moment for me to say, “Yes, of course.”
Cooper continues, but I don’t hear it over the blood pounding in my ears. I always figured I was invisible, just a jogger stretching at a bench. It never occurred to me that anyone would notice, let alone remember me from one day to the next.
I made other parents nervous.
They saw me as a threat.
Did they talk about me? Whisper warnings to each other?
Have you seen that woman with the dark ponytail? She comes by every lunch and pretends to be stretching, but she’s watching us. Eavesdropping on our conversations. Staring at our children.
I’ll never be able to set foot in that park again.
“Ms. Finch?”
I struggle to refocus. This is about the boy, not me. Remember that.
“I know what I saw,” I say. “And it wasn’t an angry dad hauling his kid into a car.”
Jackson gives Cooper a look, as if waiting for him to respond. When he doesn’t, she opens her mouth, but he cuts in with, “Either way, we are taking it seriously, Ms. Finch. We put an alert out for the SUV.”
“An AMBER Alert?”
“Without a parent reporting a child missing, we cannot do that. We need to know who we would be looking for.”
“It’s been five hours,” Jackson says. “It’s not as if Mom left the park by herself, forgetting she brought a kid.”
“We are investigating, Ms. Finch,” Cooper says. “We wouldn’t ignore something like this.” He pushes to his feet. “If a child is reported missing, we’ll let you know.”
About the Author
Kelley Armstrong is the author of the Rockton thriller series and standalone thrillers beginning with Wherever She Goes. Past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Cainsville gothic mystery series, the Nadia Stafford thriller trilogy, the Darkest Powers & Darkness Rising teen paranormal series and the Age of Legends teen fantasy series. Armstrong lives in Ontario, Canada with her family.
Visit her online:
www.KelleyArmstrong.com
[email protected]
Every Step She Takes Page 30
