Somewhere Out There(3)

“No.” He frowned at me and held out his hand. “I need to look in your backpack.”

“What?” I said. I tried to sound offended, but my shaking voice gave me away. “Why?”

Rick kept his arm outstretched. “My manager has you on tape,” he said with a stern look. “He saw everything.”

I thought about arguing, pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about, but realized if there was a tape, denial would be pointless. “Please, you don’t understand,” I said, tears flooding my eyes. “I never do this . . . I just . . . My kids are hungry and I ran out of money. We’re homeless. I didn’t know what else to do.” I glanced over his shoulder and saw a short, burly bald man striding toward us, his stubby arms swinging at his sides.

“Sorry,” Rick said. His expression softened. “But you still need to give me the bag.”

Reluctantly, I handed over my backpack, feeling the blood rush by my ears. All I could think about was the girls, outside, sitting alone and afraid in the dark. I would do anything it took to get back to them.

The manager approached us and snatched the backpack from Rick’s grasp. “Someone’s been busy,” he said, with a hint of disgust. He had tiny blue eyes and small hands; his name tag said STEVE.

“Look, this was a huge mistake,” I said, hoping I could plead my way out of this mess. I looked at Rick. “Seriously, I’ve never done anything like it.” A lie, but one I hoped they might believe.

The manager stared at me. “Uh-huh.”

I stepped forward and put my hand on his thick forearm. “It’s the truth, I swear. I just needed to feed my kids. I couldn’t let them starve. Please, just let me go and I swear I’ll never come back.”

Steve hesitated, and I thought I might have gotten through to him until I saw a brief flash of red and blue lights outside the glass doors.

My blood ran cold. “You called the police?” I’d only been in the store for ten minutes, at most. The manager must have been watching me the entire time.

“It’s store policy,” Rick said, sounding a little sorry to relay the information.

“Wait, please,” I begged. “You can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” Steve said, pulling away from my touch.

The whoosh of the doors opening silenced me, and two police officers came in to stand beside me. “This is her?” the younger one asked, taking me by the arm. He was almost as tall as Rick, but with a bigger build. His black hair was shorn into a buzz cut and his blue shirt was tight around his biceps. He smelled like cologne and stale coffee.

“Yep,” Steven said. “Claims she was stealing to feed her kids.” He unzipped my backpack and rummaged through its contents, coming up with a jar of pureed squash. “Might be true.” He shrugged, like either way, it made no difference to him.

“It is true,” I said. My voice broke on the words. “Please. They’re still in my car.”

The older officer finally spoke. “You left your kids alone out there?” He squinted, then looked toward the parking lot.

“I’ll go check,” the younger officer said, letting go of my arm. “Keys?”

“Please, let me go with you,” I said, trying not to cry as I dug into my front pocket, then handed the keys to him. I imagined Brooke seeing the officer opening the car door, her screams as she realized it was anyone other than me. She had a real fear of strangers; for her own safety, living the way we did, I’d done my best to teach her not to trust anyone but me.

The young officer took off without a word, and I couldn’t help it—the tears I’d been holding back began to fall. “Please,” I said again, my entire body starting to shake. “Let me at least tell them it’s going to be okay.” Another lie, but one I hoped my little girl might believe.

“What’s your name, young lady?” the older officer asked. His voice was stern, unyielding. His thick, gray mustache reminded me of my grandfather who’d died of a heart attack when I was ten. The way my grandma had cried at his funeral sounded like a howling wolf; my mother, a woman whose idea of showing emotion was a pat on the back, had been mortified. Three years later, when my grandma passed away, too, my mother didn’t shed one tear.

My chin trembled. “Jennifer Walker.”

“And what am I going to find when I punch your name into the system, Jennifer? Have you done this dance before?”

I held his gaze for a moment, thinking of all the decisions I’d made over the past four years, so many of them like tonight, knowing what the consequences might be, but still, thinking I knew best, deciding to take the risk.

“Yes,” I told the officer, and then dropped my eyes to the floor. There was no sense trying to hide it; he would find out everything soon enough.

? ? ?

“This makes your fourth count of petty theft,” my social worker, Gina Ortiz, said, looking at the thick file on the table between us. It was the morning after my arrest, and my public defender had left the small interview room in the police station just moments ago, after he informed me there was no way I was going to get out of spending at least a couple months in jail. “Up to two years,” he’d said. “Maybe more, if things don’t go your way.”

But the girls, I wanted to scream. What about my girls? I’d been in trouble before; I’d even been put in a jail cell a time or two—only for a few hours, never overnight, and I’d always managed to get off with a warning or a fine. Now, here I was, contemplating the possibility that Natalie might learn to walk without me there to hold her hand.