“Why?”
“He reached for the girl.”
The officer studied him.
Marcus knew what the man saw: six feet four inches, broad shoulders, weathered tattoos, boots, leather, gray beard, and knuckles scarred from forty years of working with engines.
Marcus was accustomed to being judged before he spoke.
Today, strangely, he did not care.
He kept looking toward Chloe.
Evan's daughter.
It was impossible.
Evan had been gone nearly eight years.
His son had been twenty-seven when a rain-slick road and a driver who never saw the motorcycle approaching had ended a future Marcus had assumed would stretch for decades.
Marcus had buried him beneath an oak tree on a windy November morning.
He had also buried dozens of things he never got to say.
There had been no daughter.
Marcus would have known.
Wouldn't he?
“Mr. Hale?”
The officer's voice brought him back.
“Yes.”
“We received a missing-child report matching her description about forty minutes ago. Her mother is on her way.”
Marcus swallowed.
“Her mother.”
“Yes.”
“What's her name?”
The officer checked his notes.
“Sarah Bennett.”
Marcus's chest tightened.
He knew that name.
Not well.
Not anymore.
But once, years earlier, Evan had spoken it so often that Marcus used to joke there should have been a chair at the dinner table reserved for Sarah even when she wasn't there.
Sarah liked old movies.
Sarah hated olives.
Sarah wanted to be a teacher.
Sarah had laughed when Evan attempted to bake a birthday cake and accidentally used salt instead of sugar.
Then one day Sarah's name stopped appearing.
Marcus never asked enough questions.
He had been too proud.
Evan had been too angry.
And by the time Marcus understood how much distance had grown between father and son, there had been no time left to cross it.
Marcus rubbed a hand over his mouth.
The policeman noticed.
“You know the mother?”
“I knew someone by that name.”
Before he could explain, Chloe suddenly pulled away from the woman comforting her and ran toward him.
The officer instinctively stepped between them.
“It's all right,” Marcus said.
Chloe stopped.
Her eyes moved toward Gary, now handcuffed near the front of the aisle.
“Is he going to take me?”
“No,” the officer said. “You're safe.”
She looked at Marcus as if the answer mattered more coming from him.
Marcus crouched.
His knees protested beneath him.
“No one's taking you anywhere, kiddo.”