The waiting room of St. Mary’s was empty, save for a vending machine that hummed aggressively in the corner and an old man sleeping in a wheelchair near the entrance. The television mounted on the wall was muted, playing a looped news segment about the blizzard—”The Hawk” gripping the city, record lows, schools closed.
I sat in a hard plastic chair, my notebook open on my lap, but the page was blank.
My phone buzzed. It was Sergeant Miller (no relation), my watch commander.
“Jack,” his voice was gruff. “Dispatch said you’re at St. Mary’s with a code blue juvenile? What the hell happened? You were supposed to be clearing a nuisance call.”
“The nuisance call was the kid, Sarge,” I said, my voice flat. “Someone dumped a five-year-old boy and a puppy on a bench in Washington Park. Buried them in snow.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Even Miller, who had been on the force for thirty years and had a heart made of old boot leather, was stunned.
“Is he…?”
“Alive. Barely,” I said. “Docs are working on him. He’s malnourished, hypothermic. It’s bad, Sarge.”
“Okay,” Miller said, shifting gears instantly. “I’ll send detectives over to—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m working it.”
“Jack, your shift ended an hour ago. You’re exhausted. Go home. Let SVU handle it.”
“I found him,” I said, gripping the phone tight. “I looked him in the eye. I’m not handing this off to some detective who’s going to work it from a desk at 9 AM tomorrow. The trail is fresh now. The snow is covering everything. If I don’t go back there now, we lose whatever evidence is left.”
Miller sighed. He knew me. He knew that once I locked onto something, I was like a pitbull with a chew toy.
“Fine,” he relented. “But stay on the radio. And Jack? Don’t do anything stupid. If you find the parents… you call it in. You don’t play vigilante.”
“Copy,” I lied.
I hung up and walked over to the vending machine. I bought a black coffee that tasted like burnt battery acid and downed it in three gulps. The caffeine hit my system like a slap in the face.
I needed to go back to the park.
But first, I needed to analyze what I had.
I took the note out of the evidence bag I’d improvised from a sandwich baggie I found in the cruiser. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, I looked at it closely.
The paper was cheap, thin. It looked like the back of a flyer or a receipt, but the other side was blank. The edges were torn, not cut, suggesting it was ripped from a notebook or a larger sheet in a hurry.
The handwriting. It was jagged. The letters slanted heavily to the right. The pressure of the pen varied wildly—sometimes barely scratching the surface, sometimes pressing so hard it almost tore the paper.
Panic. The writer was in a state of absolute panic.
God forgive me.
The religious appeal suggested guilt. This wasn’t a callous disposal. This was an act of desperation.
I walked out to the cruiser. The wind had picked up, if that was even possible. The snow was falling horizontally now.
I drove back to Washington Park. The drive was slower this time; the plows were finally out, creating walls of snow on the sides of the avenues.
When I arrived at the park, the scene had changed. The wind had sculpted new drifts. My footprints from earlier were almost gone.
I grabbed my flashlight and the crime scene tape from the trunk. I cordoned off the bench, though there was no one around to see it.
I stood in front of the bench. I closed my eyes and tried to reconstruct the scene.
The caller said they saw “trash” on the bench. That meant the boy was already covered in snow when they looked. Or… the boy had been placed there and covered intentionally.
I shone my light on the ground. The snow was a mess of trampled footprints—mine, the EMS crew. But I looked further out. Beyond the immediate radius of the bench.
About twenty feet away, near a cluster of frozen oak trees, the snow was undisturbed.
Except for a single set of tracks.
They were faint, rapidly filling in, but they were there. Small footprints. Not a child’s, but a small adult. Maybe a woman. Sneakers, not boots. Who wears sneakers in twenty-below weather?
Someone who doesn’t have boots.
I followed the tracks. They led away from the bench, weaving erratically, then towards the street. They stopped at the curb.
Tire tracks? No. The plow had already cleared the street there.
But wait.
I crouched down, shining the light at the base of a lamppost near where the footprints ended.
Something glinted in the snow.
I reached out with my gloved fingers and brushed the powder away.
It was a button. A simple, white plastic button, about the size of a dime. It had four holes, and a few threads were still attached to it. White threads.
It looked like a button from a medical scrub top or a cheap uniform.
I bagged it.
I stood up and looked across the street. Directly opposite the park entrance was a row of townhouses. Gentrified. Expensive. The kind of places with Ring doorbells and security cameras.
And one house in particular caught my eye. It was a three-story brick building. The lights were on in the living room.
This was the address of the 911 caller. Mrs. Higgins.
I walked across the street, the wind pushing against my back. I climbed the steps and rang the doorbell.
It took a minute. Then, the door opened a crack. An older woman with curlers in her hair and a thick bathrobe peered out. She looked annoyed.
“It’s 4 AM,” she snapped. “What is it?”
“Officer Miller, CPD,” I said, holding up my badge. “You called in a nuisance complaint earlier tonight about the bench across the street.”
“Oh, finally,” she huffed, opening the door a bit wider but not inviting me in. “Did you move it? It was an eyesore. I pay a lot of property taxes to have a view of the park, not a dump site.”
My jaw tightened. “We moved it, ma’am.”
“Good. What was it anyway? Old clothes? Some homeless person’s junk?”
I looked her dead in the eye. I wanted to see her reaction.
“It was a five-year-old boy, Mrs. Higgins. Freezing to death.”
Her face went slack. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The annoyance vanished, replaced by a flicker of… something. Shock? Yes. But was there guilt?
“A… a boy?” she stammered. “But… it looked like a pile of laundry.”
“Did you see anyone leave it?” I asked, my voice hard.
“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “I was watching TV. I glanced out the window and saw the pile. I thought someone had been fly-tipping. I called you people immediately.”
“You didn’t see a woman? Maybe wearing a uniform? Sneakers?”
She hesitated. Her eyes darted to the left. A “tell.”
“Mrs. Higgins,” I stepped closer. “A child is fighting for his life right now. If you saw something and you don’t tell me, that’s obstruction. And if that boy dies…”
She swallowed hard. She pulled her robe tighter.
“I… I saw a girl,” she whispered. “Earlier. Maybe 1:30 AM. I was letting my cat out.”
“Describe her.”
“Young. Maybe twenties. She was… she was carrying something heavy. She was stumbling. I thought she was drunk. She went to the bench, put the bundle down. She stood there for a long time. Just… standing over it.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No. She had a hood up. But…” Mrs. Higgins paused. “She was crying. Loudly. I could hear it through the window glass. It was… wretched. And then she ran. She ran toward the bus stop on 63rd.”
“Why didn’t you tell the dispatcher that?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level.
“I don’t know!” she cried defensively. “I didn’t want to get involved! I just wanted the mess gone!”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” I said coldly, turning away before I said something that would cost me my badge.
I walked back to the cruiser.
The bus stop on 63rd.
I sat in the car and pulled up the transit maps on my laptop. The number 4 bus ran all night. If she got on a bus at 1:30 AM or 1:45 AM, there would be video.
But I had something else. The button.
A white button. A medical scrub or a waitress uniform.
She was poor. No money for food. No winter boots. Working a job that required a uniform.
I thought about the area. 63rd street was lined with diners, 24-hour laundromats, and… a nursing home. Shady Pines Senior Living.
It was a long shot. A massive long shot. But instinct was all I had.
I put the car in gear.
My phone buzzed again. It was Dr. Evans.
I answered it on the first ring. “Jack.”
“He’s crashing, Jack,” her voice was urgent. “We’re losing a rhythm. His heart can’t handle the re-warming. We’re starting compressions.”
The world stopped.
“Don’t you let him die, Sarah,” I whispered. “I’m finding her. Don’t let him die before I find her.”
“We’re trying. Get back here if you want to be here for the end.”
The line went dead.
I looked at the nursing home down the street, and then at the road leading back to the hospital.
Left or Right.
Save the investigation, or be with the boy?
I looked at the empty seat next to me where the puppy had been.
Please don’t separate them.
I slammed the steering wheel.
I turned right. Back to the hospital.
Because no five-year-old boy should die alone among strangers. Even if it meant the ghost who left him there might slip away into the snow.
Chapter 5: The Line Between Here and Gone
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