Chapter 1 - THE GIRL KICKING THE LOCKED SUV
Nobody stopped for the crying girl kicking a black SUV outside the Montgomery County Fair.
I almost didn’t either.
She looked seven, maybe eight, red-faced and frantic beside a vehicle parked near the livestock entrance.
At first I assumed tantrum.
Then I looked through the rear window.
Twin toddlers were strapped into car seats.
One was crying weakly.
The other barely moved.
I put my lemonade on the pavement and tried the doors.
Locked.
The metal burned my palm.
“Who has the keys?”
The girl kept saying:
“Please. Please. Please.”
I crouched.
“What’s your name?”
“Emily.”
“Who has the keys, Emily?”
“Dean.”
“Where’s your mom?”
She pointed through the fair entrance.
“Mom told him we'd only be five minutes.”
A volunteer named Mara came running.
Security supposedly had an unlocking tool.
We waited.
That was the wrong decision.
When the 911 dispatcher heard me say one toddler had stopped responding to my voice, she told us not to wait.
A food vendor brought a spring-loaded window punch.
The dispatcher moved everyone back.
I broke the passenger window.
The sound was smaller than I expected.
I reached inside, unlocked the SUV, and opened the rear door.
Heat rolled out.
Emily tried climbing in.
I caught her around the waist.
“Let the paramedics work.”
One twin started screaming.
Good sound.
The other was breathing but barely reacting.
Paramedics arrived seconds later.
I moved a stuffed rabbit off the back seat so they could work.
Then a man came running from the fair.
Not toward the ambulance.
Toward the SUV.
“What the hell did you do to my car?”
He wore a blue polo and an orange re-entry wristband.
A security worker blocked him.
Emily moved behind me.
“Are you Dean?”
He looked past me at her.
“She’s already upset. You’re making this worse.”
I told security he was the person Emily said had the key.
Dean shook his head.
“Rachel took it inside by mistake.”
Less than a minute later, a woman ran from the fair entrance holding a folded map.
She saw the ambulance.
Dropped it.
“Where are my babies?”
Dean stepped in front of her.
“They’re okay. This woman smashed your window before anybody could explain.”
“I called 911.”
Rachel stared at the broken glass.
Then at Emily.
Then at Dean.
“Give me the keys.”
He patted his pocket.
“I don’t have them.”
Emily spoke from behind me.
“You do.”
Dean’s face changed.
Barely.
He lowered his voice.
“Sweetheart, you got out when I told you not to.”
Emily shook her head violently.
“He locked it after I got out.”
Nobody spoke.
Dean looked at Rachel.
“She's confused.”
Then one of the paramedics called:
“Mom, we need you.”
Rachel ran toward the ambulance.
May you like
Dean remained beside the SUV.
And while everyone watched the children, I watched him quietly remove something from his pocket and push it underneath a trash barrel with his shoe.
