"May I see the rabbit, June?"
The girl hugged it harder.
"No."
"That's all right."
Rachel didn't reach for it.
I was grateful for that. The rabbit was the only thing in the room that belonged to June, and if taking it away made her feel trapped again, it wasn't worth the risk.
Instead, I asked, "Can you tell me what your mommy said about the bunny?"
June looked from me to the toy.
"She put something inside. She said it was a very important thing, and I had to keep it safe."
"Do you know what she put inside?"
"No."
"Did she show you?"
June nodded.
"She opened the back."
I looked at the rabbit.
The red ribbon was tied around its neck, and a small line of thread ran along the seam between its shoulders. The stitching was uneven, as though someone had repaired it by hand.
It could have been a child's toy with a simple repair.
Or it could have been something else.
Rachel kept her voice calm.
"June, would you be comfortable letting me look at the seam? I won't open anything unless you tell me it's okay."
The girl shook her head.
Rachel nodded.
"That's fine. You can hold it."
June seemed surprised.
"You're not going to take it?"
"No."
"Even if it's important?"
"Especially if it's important to you."
June stared at her.
Then she sat beside Rachel on the floor and carefully laid the rabbit across her knees.
She pointed to its back.
"Mommy put it here."
Rachel examined the seam without touching it.
"There's some stitching that's different from the rest."
"Can you open it?" I asked.
"Not without considering how to preserve whatever is inside. If this is evidence, we need to handle it correctly."
I nodded.
For a few minutes, nobody spoke.
Then June touched the rabbit's red ribbon.
"Mommy said the bad man would come looking for it."
I looked toward the windows.
The center had blinds on the lower half of the glass, but the afternoon sunlight still filled the room with a warm glow. Beyond the parking area, the desert stretched toward low mountains, beautiful and merciless in equal measure.
"Did she tell you who the bad man was?" I asked.
June's expression became distant.
"Dale said Mommy stole something."
"What did he say she stole?"
"Paper."
"Did your mother steal paper?"
June frowned.
"No. She said she found it. She said the children were being hurt."
Rachel sat very still.
"What children, honey?"
"The children at the place where Mommy worked."
June rubbed the rabbit's ear between her fingers.
"Mommy said some people were telling lies. They said children were safe, but they weren't. She said some of them disappeared."
A chill traveled through me.
There were a thousand innocent explanations for an adult's dispute with an employer. There were fewer explanations for a child hearing that children had disappeared from a facility supposedly responsible for their safety.
"Did your mother tell you what happened to them?" I asked.
June shook her head.
"She cried one night. She said she was going to fix it."
Her eyes filled.
"I told her she could fix anything."
She looked down at the rabbit.
"But Dale came before she could."
Rachel's expression tightened with sorrow.
I looked at the caseworker.
"How serious is this?"
"If the information is accurate, very serious. But we need facts before we make conclusions. I'll contact my supervisor and request that the case be escalated to the state level."
She rose and stepped into the hallway to make the call.
I remained beside June.
She had stopped crying, but her face had gone rigid again. It was as if each memory took a little more of her away from the room.
"Jack?"
"Yes?"
"Is my mommy going to be mad at me?"
I blinked.
"Why would she be mad?"
"Because I told you."
I felt something inside me twist.
"No, June. Your mommy wanted you to be safe. Telling us what happened is helping us do that."
She searched my face.
"Even if Dale gets angry?"
"Even then."
She was quiet for a while.
Then she leaned against my shoulder.
I let her rest there.
A few minutes later, Cole entered carrying a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk. He stopped when he saw us on the floor.
"Am I interrupting a meeting?"
"Only the important kind," I said.
He placed the food on the nearby table.
"Well, I've brought supplies."
June eyed the sandwich suspiciously.
Cole noticed.
"It's just turkey," he explained. "No tricks. Though I can't guarantee the bread hasn't been conspiring against us."
She blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
It was a tiny sound, almost too short to be called laughter, but it was real.
Cole looked at me.
I shook my head, warning him not to make too much of it.
He sat down on the opposite side of the table and began eating his own sandwich. After a moment, June picked up half of hers.
She took a cautious bite.
Then another.
I watched her eat and thought of how little we understood about the past forty-eight hours of her life. She had been taken from her mother, driven through the desert, and threatened into silence. She had reached a diner full of strangers and asked for help.
Now she was trying to decide whether turkey on white bread was safe.
It made every other problem seem very small.
At sunset, Sergeant Morales came inside with a woman in a dark blue blouse and plain black slacks. She was in her late thirties, with dark hair gathered at the nape of her neck and the watchful eyes of someone who noticed details for a living.