“The world is a little upside down right now. We’re great at basketball and so-so at football.”
“This will be our year.”
“Sure, it will. My mom’s been saying that for the last ten.” She glanced back at the bed, refusing to let herself be distractedby one of her favorite non-work topics or the fun she would have bantering with him. “How old do you think she is?”
“Hmm?”
“Jane Doe. How old?”
He shrugged. “I’m not good with kids’ ages. I tend to think girls are older than they are and boys are younger. I don’t have nieces and nephews, so my guesser is off.”
“Interesting way of framing it.” But it made sense, too. “I think she looks younger than she really is because she’s either malnourished or sick. Maybe both. And the combination makes her look young.”
The detective shrugged again. “I’ll take your word for it.” He stifled a yawn with his hand.
“You don’t need to wait here. As I said, I’m staying all night.”
He looked around as if something concerned him. He was good-sized and muscular, like maybe he’d played football at one point in time. “I think I’ll stick around. I don’t like not knowing why she ended up in the alley. The airport isn’t far from the interstate, and that’s a main artery for trafficking. There are too many questions and not enough answers.”
She hadn’t considered trafficking. “Why not leave her at a truck stop if trafficking was involved?”
There were several near the exits surrounding the airport.
“Maybe that would have been too traceable.”
She raised an eyebrow as she looked at him.
“More cameras in those locations. The fact that she’s unconscious means they couldn’t just leave her when she was using the restroom and take off. In theory, we could use cameras to backtrack to whoever left her, but now, that’s not available. We don’t know when she was left or really anything.” He scrubbed his hands over his head, ruffling his hair until some of it stood on end.
“Did anyone check her clothes?” Bridget really should have asked that the moment she arrived, but if there had been information there surely someone would have mentioned it.
He gestured to the pile by the sink. “Feel free to check it for yourself, but neither the nurse nor I spotted anything that would indicate anything helpful. It’s like she dropped into the alley from nowhere.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Yep. But that’s what it seems like happened.” He pushed away from the sink. “I’ll ask someone to search the alley, see if they can find anything or locate the kid.”
“Wouldn’t there be a forensics team scrubbing the area?”
“Not if there’s no crime. At this point, it doesn’t look like there is one.”
“But it’s not clear there isn’t one.” She didn’t bother to hide her frustration. Then she rubbed her face with her hands. “I wish we could do something useful like find the evidence that this,” she gestured to the girl in the bed, “is a crime and we could make someone pay. Ideally before something happens to potential evidence.”
“I could go back out there, but I’m concerned someone might come looking for her.”
“Why?” She bit down on her lower lip. “No one has missed her.”
“Maybe there’s no one to miss her.”
“Don’t say that so loud.” She felt tears forming, and she wanted to hide them.
“What?”
“What if she can hear you?”
“Maybe she’ll come back to us faster because we need her help.” He fisted his hands and thrust them on his hips. He glared at her, and she glared right back, matching heat with heat.
Bridget tried to ignore the electricity leaping between them before he nodded once.
