Chapter 5: Someone Else in the Building
Okafor locked the side door from the inside and stood with her back against it.
"How many people are in the building right now?" Terrence asked.
"Dispatch, two officers on desk rotation, and whoever just touched the camera panel." She looked at the dark indicator light.
"That panel requires a supervisor key."
"Garrett has one."
"Garrett is supposed to be off today." She pulled out her personal cell phone — not the department radio, not the desk line.
"I'm calling the state CPS emergency line directly.
And I'm calling the county DA's office."
"On a Sunday?"
"The DA has a weekend duty attorney.
This qualifies." She was already moving toward the back office, phone to her ear.
She paused in the doorway.
"Terrence.
Go with the girls.
Don't stop for anyone in this building.
Don't answer questions from anyone you didn't invite.
The moment you reach the hospital, you stay with them until a CPS worker is physically present.
Understood?"
"Understood."
"And Terrence." Her voice dropped.
"Document everything from the moment they walked in.
Time, words, sequence.
Write it by hand on paper, not in the system.
Not tonight."
He nodded.
She disappeared into the back office.
Terrence caught up with the paramedics in the side corridor.
Charlotte was walking beside the gurney with both hands wrapped around Delilah's right hand.
Delilah's eyes were open now, tracking the ceiling tiles as they moved.
"Hey," Terrence said softly, falling into step beside Charlotte.
"How are you doing?"
"My feet hurt," Charlotte said.
"We walked a long way."
"How far?"
She thought about it.
"We passed the big church with the broken sign.
And the car wash.
And the place that sells mattresses."
Terrence knew that route.
It was nearly two miles.
"You walked two miles to get to us," he said.
Charlotte looked straight ahead.
"I would have walked more."
The ambulance bay doors opened.
Rain came in sideways.
The paramedics moved the gurney smoothly over the threshold and Terrence held the door while Charlotte climbed in after her sister.
He was pulling the door shut behind them when he heard footsteps on the concrete behind him.
"Officer Callahan."
He turned.
A man he didn't recognize was standing at the far end of the ambulance bay — plain clothes, no badge visible, holding a folded document in one hand.
"I have an emergency custody order," the man said.
"Signed twenty minutes ago.
I need you to hold those children."
Terrence looked at the document.
Then at the man's hands.
Then at the ambulance, where Charlotte was watching through the small rear window with her palm pressed flat against the glass.
"Who authorized it?" Terrence asked.
The man took a step forward.
"That's all in the order.
If you'll just—"
"Who authorized it?"
The man stopped.
Something in his expression shifted — not guilt exactly, but the particular recalibration of someone whose script had not prepared for resistance.
"Judge Harlan Pruitt," he said.
"Family court."
Terrence knew that name.
Every officer in the county knew that name.
Judge Harlan Pruitt had dismissed three child welfare cases in the past two years.
Douglas Sinclair had testified as an expert witness in one of them.
Terrence looked at the document in the man's hand.
He looked at the ambulance.
He looked at Charlotte's palm still pressed against the glass.
"That order will need to be verified through the county DA's duty attorney before I act on it," he said.
"You're welcome to wait inside."
He turned, climbed into the ambulance, and pulled the door shut.
May you like
The man outside didn't move for a long moment.
Then the ambulance pulled away.
