“Mister,” she whispered, shaking so hard I could feel it through my denim jacket. “Please pretend you’re my daddy. Don’t let him take me.”
Her hair was tangled, her voice barely there, and faint bruises shaped like fingerprints marked her arms. Before I could speak, I heard a sharp shout.
I looked up. A man in his mid-thirties paced toward us, eyes wild, face red, sweat beading at his forehead. Every instinct in me locked onto danger.
The girl pressed her cheek to my arm. “That’s my daddy,” she said. “But he hurt Mommy. There was… there was a lot of blood.”
The whole aisle seemed to tilt.
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