You step back into the rain and force your hands not to shake as you lift your phone. The screen is slick with water, and your thumb slips on it like your life is sliding out from under you all over again.
You call the police anyway, because your instincts are screaming, but your head is still trying to be smart. You tell the dispatcher the address, tell them you heard a child crying, tell them you have a missing child and the girl inside recognized him from the poster.
You don’t mention the shadow in the window at first. You don’t mention the way your stomach clenched when the barefoot girl said, If you come back tomorrow… he might not be here. You keep your voice calm because you’ve learned calm gets taken seriously, and panic gets put on hold.
When the dispatcher asks for your name, you say it, and you hear the tiny pause on the other end. The kind of pause that means they recognize you from a file, from a case, from the sort of nightmare that sits on someone’s desk for a year and still doesn’t have an ending.
“Sir,” she says carefully, “units are on the way.”
You look up at that upstairs window again. The curtain doesn’t move, but you swear you feel eyes pressing through the fabric.
And then your phone vibrates with something worse than silence: no signal.
You turn slowly, scanning the street for a spot where the bars might come back. The neighborhood is quiet in a way that makes you feel like you’re the loudest thing in it, like your breathing could give you away.
