“You don’t look like a mother,” I said, my voice low and calm. “And you sure as hell don’t approach a terrified kid with a cattle prod.”
“He’s violent!” she screamed, stepping within three feet of me. “He needs his medication! Move!”
She lunged forward, trying to reach around my waist to grab the boy by his hair.
I didn’t give her the chance. As she thrust her arm forward, bringing the sparking stun gun dangerously close to my ribs, I brought my right hand up in a fast, brutal arc. The heavy cowhide leather of my riding glove slammed into her wrist. The impact produced a loud crack. She shrieked as the stun gun flew out of her hand, skittering across the dirt and coming to rest in the dust near my boots.
Before she could recover, I reached forward, grabbing a fistful of her expensive, highlighted hair. I spun her around and slammed her upper body face-down onto the wooden surface of the picnic table. I pressed my forearm firmly into the back of her neck, just hard enough to let her know that if she struggled, things were going to get much worse.
“Let go of me! Help! Somebody help!” she shrieked, kicking her legs wildly against the bench.
The cook from the diner stepped out the back door, wiping his hands on a filthy apron, his eyes wide.
“Call the county sheriff,” I told the cook, not taking my eyes off the woman beneath me. “Tell them we have a domestic disturbance.”
The cook nodded rapidly and disappeared back inside.
“You’re going to prison for this!” the woman spat, her cheek pressed against the greasy wood. “I have papers! I am a state-registered foster parent! You’re assaulting a mother!”
“A mother doesn’t chase a barefoot kid across hot gravel with a taser,” I said softly, leaning my weight into my forearm.
I glanced down at the dirt. When she had lunged at me, something else had fallen out of her slacks. It was a cheap, black burner phone. It lay face-up in the dirt next to the deactivated stun gun.
As I watched, the screen illuminated. A text message notification popped up on the lock screen. It was sent from an unsaved number. The preview text was clearly visible.
Subject 3 failed. Buyer is agitated. Are you at the drop point with 4?
My chest tightened. I looked back down at the boy trembling against my leg, remembering the plastic band on his wrist. Subject 4 – B-Negative.
This wasn’t a bad foster home. This wasn’t an abusive mother. This was a delivery.
In the distance, the faint wail of a police siren began to cut through the heavy desert air. The sheriff was coming. But as I looked at the burner phone, a dark, heavy realization settled into my stomach. If I handed this kid over to local law enforcement, and she really did have the forged state papers she claimed to possess, the cops would give the boy right back to her.
I had thirty seconds before a squad car pulled into this parking lot. Thirty seconds to decide if I was going to finish my sandwich and ride away, or if I was going to ruin my life by stealing a child from the law to find out the truth.
The wail of the siren grew deafening as a white and brown county cruiser tore into the gravel parking lot, kicking up a massive cloud of choking white dust. The vehicle skidded to a halt mere feet from my motorcycle. The door threw open, and a heavy-set deputy with a graying mustache and a sweat-stained uniform stepped out, his hand instinctively resting on the butt of his sidearm.