Chapter 19 #2
Just as the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, I hit the button to return to the lobby.
Damn it.
One quick check. That’s all I needed. If she wasn’t in the lobby when I got down, the issue would have sorted itself. If there was even an issue to begin with. Yes, that was it, one quick check and I’d see an empty lobby, then I could proceed with my day as planned and—
Crap, the girl was still in the lobby. And she didn’t look any less lost.
Well, now I had to do something about it. Maybe it was my passenger-carrying status, but I just didn’t have it in me to be a willing bystander.
Exiting the elevator, I was hit with a sudden wave of dread.
My vision shook. A ghost rain pattered against my skin, mud caked beneath me.
The last time I involved myself in someone else’s business was with the Almeidas and I was beaten within an inch of my life.
What if this child was a lure? Some trick to get me to fall into a trap?
Or, I reminded myself, there could be nothing wrong, and I was just approaching a child to offer them help.
Alone. And I was a stranger. With a prison record.
This was bad. This was not going to plan. I should have kept my nose in my own business, but that was not the way I was wired. How was I supposed to talk to this kid without being weird?
Oh god. This was a bad idea…
“Hi.” I stopped at a respectable distance, and gave the most awkward wave I’d ever given in my life. “I’m sure you’re fine, or waiting for someone, but something told me I should check if you were lost. Are you lost?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay,” See? Nothing to worry about. “Wonderful, I’ll—”
“I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’m in the right place, but don’t know where to go.”
So… lost. I said as much out loud.
She looked at me with defiance, her little nose turned up in the air. “No, I’m in the right building.” She had confidence, I had to give her that.
“But…”
Shifting her weight between her feet, she paused a moment before speaking words so soft I almost didn’t hear her. “I can’t remember where he lives.”
Alarm bells rang inside my head. “Where… who… lives?”
Avoiding eye contact, she twisted her foot on the floor. The alarm bells grew louder. The agents left me alone for five minutes, five, and I already found trouble. I hoped to all hope that she wasn’t here to meet a stranger she met on the internet.
“Did someone message you to meet them here?”
“What?!” Anger and embarrassment flashed in her eyes. “No! My dad!”
Relief washed over me. “Oh, thank god, why didn’t you start with that?”
“You’re a stranger! Stranger danger much?” Me and the child stared at each other.
Then I remembered that I was the adult here. “Fair. Okay, well sorry for scaring you, strange child.” Strange child? Oh, this was going swimmingly. “But since you are sure that your father lives here, and there is no possible way you could have the wrong building, I’ll stop bothering you.”
I turned to head back upstairs. I did what I set out to do.
I wasn’t going to force the child to accept my help.
She seemed capable. Her anger would do her wonders.
But before I could make it to the elevator, I felt a gentle tug at my hand.
The girl had grabbed it, and let go just as quickly.
“I… I can’t remember which apartment,” she admitted.
“I see.” Honesty. I could work with honesty. It gave me a place to figure out where there was room to help. “Do you have a number we could use to call him?”
The girls mouth formed and re-formed with no answer.
“I see.”
“I’m not dumb,” she defended. “I just don’t know his number, whenever I used to call him from mom’s phone it just said ‘the ex’.”
That was a loaded statement if I ever heard one. “Could we call up your mom to get the apartment number?”
The little girl shook her head frantically.
There were a lot of ways I could unpack her reaction, but then I remembered that this was just a child looking for her father, and not some Machiavellian scheme with layers of inner workings.
Sometimes things were as simple as they appeared on the surface.
“I see.” I huffed, “Okay, come on then.” I turned and walked towards the first-floor hall way.
She kept up pace behind me, her feet taking two steps for every one of mine. “Are you kidnapping me?”
Sigh. “Normally, I’d make a sarcastic comment here, but seeing as I’m an adult and you’re a strange lost child… no, we’re going door-to-door. And I’m going to make sure you find your father.”
The girl stopped. “You’d do that for me?”
“It’s time I said hi to the neighbors.” I trudged on and waited by the first door. “But I need you to promise me that if we don’t find him, you’ll let me call your mom.”
The little girl held up her tiny pinky.
“What? What is this? What are you doing?”
“Pinky swear.” She wiggled her pinky closer to my face. When I didn’t move, she let out a flustered sound as she grabbed my hand pulled out my pinky and briefly wrapped hers around mine. “There. Now you know I’m for real. I don’t break pinky promises.”
“Come on then.” I held in the smile that threatened to bloom on my face. I hadn’t made a pinky promise in a very long time. “I don’t know what your dad looks like, so I’m going to need your help finding him.”
It took a few doors for us to settle into a routine. I’d knock, the girl would shake her head when she didn’t recognize the person who answered, then I’d apologize that we had the wrong apartment.
The first two doors we knocked on, however, got a version of, “is this your child?” Which did not go over as well. But I like to think I showed growth as we improved our process.
“You know,” the little girl started as we took the stairwell up to the next floor. “You keep calling me a child, but you aren’t treating me like one.”
Unease unfurled in the pit of my stomach. “Sorry, I don’t have much experience with children.”
“It’s a good thing.”
Oh, well… I hadn’t been expecting that. I kind of liked it.
“Most adults would also be asking me all sorts of questions right now.” I liked that less. Now, I felt irresponsible.
“Like what?”
“Like why I’m here.”
“You’re here to visit your dad. And whether he is expecting you or not, I figured you had a good reason, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” But I assumed children weren’t subtle creatures. “Do you want me to ask you questions about it?”
She gave me a little shake of her head, then held open the door for me, before we started our round on the second floor. We cleared one hallway before she asked, “Do you have any kids?”
Blinking away the array of emotions that washed through me at the loaded question, I thought of the only truthful response I could muster. “Not right now.”
She didn’t miss a beat before asking, “Do you want them?”
Did all kids lack filters, or just this little raven-haired girl? “I’m not really in a position to adopt, sorry kid.”
“No, I…” She came to a full stop. “My mom is having another baby.”
I stopped with her, from what little I knew about her family dynamics, we were getting into complicated territory. “Oh?”
The girl gave what I could only describe as an uneasy chuckle. “Everyone thinks it’s a good thing. But you get it. I can tell.” She poked a freckle on my arm. “You’re the first person who didn’t congratulate me.”
A door down at the far end of the hall opened. An older man got out and made his way to the elevator. The little girl shook her head. It was not the door we were looking for.