I was shaking out the dirt from my nine-year-old daughter Chloe’s backpack on Monday evening when those crumpled bills fell out. Two twenties. I asked her where on earth she got that kind of money, and she just shrugged.
She said a nice lady at her after-school program gave it to her for being a good girl.
Well, let me tell you, my motherly instincts went into overdrive. We pay one hundred and seventy-five dollars a month for this program, so I called them up. The girl on the phone swore up and down that every single worker was background-checked. I just couldn’t shake the bad feeling, though.
So, the next afternoon, I went there early. It was about three-fifteen. I peered through the little glass window of the classroom.
There was a woman I had never seen before, sitting on a tiny chair right next to my Chloe. She was brushing my sweet girl’s hair and taking photos of her on her phone. Three different photos, posing her like a doll.
I didn’t even think. I just marched right in.
I asked her who she was, and she jumped out of her skin. She told me she was a volunteer, but when I asked why she was handing my daughter cash, she grabbed her purse and practically ran out the door.
I went straight to the director’s office and demanded the sign-in logs. The woman’s name was Janet Boyle, and she had been coming there for five weeks. Not a single background check had been run.
The director started shaking as she pulled up the physical application Janet had filled out. I looked down at the paper, and my eyes landed on the emergency contact line.
It was my ex-husband’s name and phone number. Underneath, where the form asked for the relationship to the contact, Janet had written one word. Fiancée.
He couldn’t get visitation rights through the courts, so he paid his new woman to pretend to be a volunteer just so he could get photos of my baby. I am sitting in my car right now waiting for the police, and I honestly can’t stop shaking.
I watched the blue lights of the police cruiser wash over the school’s old brick sign. It was getting dark out, and the wind was starting to pick up. The air had that damp, cold autumn chill that gets right into your joints if you sit still too long. My hands were still gripping the steering wheel so tight they felt stiff. Honestly, I couldn’t stop them from shaking. I kept looking at the rearview mirror, half expecting to see my ex-husband Greg’s car pull up behind me.
Officer Benson was his name. He was a nice young man, probably no older than twenty-five, bless his heart. He walked up to my driver-side window and tapped gently on the glass.
“Ma’am?” he asked when I rolled it down. “Are you Mary?”
I just nodded. I couldn’t even find my voice for a second. I pointed toward the double doors of the after-school building. “She’s gone,” I managed to say. “The woman. But her paperwork is still inside.”
We walked back into the lobby together, and the officer had to hold the door for me because my knees felt like absolute jelly. The smell of floor wax and old school lunches always makes me think of my own school days, but today it just made me feel sick to my stomach.
The director, Mrs. Gable, was sitting at her desk. She looked completely petrified. Her face was pasty, and she kept tapping a yellow pencil against her coffee mug. Tap, tap, tap. It was driving me absolutely up the wall.
“Tell him,” I said, pointing at the officer. “Tell him who you let in here around my kid.”
Mrs. Gable looked up at Officer Benson, her eyes wide and watery. “It was an oversight,” she whispered. “We’ve been so short-staffed since October, and she seemed so sweet.”
“An oversight?” I shouted. I didn’t care who heard me. “You let a strange woman brush my daughter’s hair! You let her take pictures on her phone!”
Officer Benson held up his hand to quiet me down. “Let’s calm down for a second,” he said. “Show me the application, please.”
Mrs. Gable handed over the clipboard. The paper was slightly crumpled at the corner, like she had tried to stuff it away in a drawer before we came in. I stared at that name again. Janet Boyle. It still didn’t ring any bells.
But then I pointed to the emergency contact line. “That’s Greg’s number,” I told the officer. “My ex-husband. I’d know those last four digits anywhere.”
Seeing his number written out in that neat, loopy handwriting made my brain kind of go numb for a second. Greg and I had been divorced for three years. The judge took away his visitation rights after he tried to take Chloe out of state without telling me. He hadn’t seen her in eighteen months.
“Do you know this Janet woman, Mary?” the officer asked me.
“No,” I said. “But if she’s with Greg, she’s trouble. He always finds a way to get what he wants.”
Officer Benson took out his little notepad. “We’re going to call him,” he said.
He dialed the number right there in the office and put it on speakerphone. The ringing sound was so loud in that quiet room. It rang three times, and then a man’s voice picked up.
“Did you get her?” Greg asked. He sounded out of breath, excited. “Janet? Is she with you?”
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned right over the desk. “She’s not with her, Greg!” I screamed into the phone. “The police are here!”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end, and then the line went dead. Just static.
Officer Benson frowned and hung up. “Well,” he said. “That confirms it.”
While the officer was talking to Mrs. Gable about the lack of background checks, I walked back down the hallway to the classroom to get Chloe. She was sitting at one of those tiny round tables, coloring a picture of a horse. She looked so small and innocent.
I sat down in the chair next to her, the same one Janet had been sitting in. “Hey, sweetie,” I said. “Are you ready to go home?”
Chloe looked up and smiled. “Did the nice lady have to leave?” she asked.
“Yes, baby,” I said. “She had to go.”
“She told me we were going to a surprise party,” Chloe said, swinging her legs. “She said Daddy was going to be there with a big cake.”
I felt a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck.
He wasn’t just trying to get photos. He was planning to take her.
I looked down at the floor, and that’s when I saw it. Janet had been in such a rush to leave that she left her large canvas tote bag sitting right under the kid’s art table, tucked behind a plastic bin of building blocks.
“Officer Benson!” I called out.
The officer came in and used a pen to open the zipper. He pulled out a small, black leather daily planner.
He opened it to the current week. Every single day was marked with Chloe’s schedule. “3:15 PM, brush hair, take photos for G.” “4:30 PM, mention the cake.”
But it was the tucked-in envelope at the back of the planner that made me lose my breath.
It was a printed one-way flight confirmation for three people. One for Greg, one for Janet, and one for Chloe. The destination was a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States.
The departure date on the ticket was tomorrow morning at seven.
I grabbed Chloe and held her so tight she complained I was hurting her arm. I didn’t care. I just cried into her hair right there in the classroom.
The police have issued a warrant for both of them now. My brother is coming over with a new set of deadbolt locks for the front door.
Chloe is fast asleep in her bed right now. I’m sitting on the edge of her mattress, watching her chest rise and fall in the dark. I keep looking at my phone, waiting for a text from the detective. Every little creak of this old house makes me jump. I know we’re safe for tonight, but I also know Greg. He’s still out there somewhere, and I don’t think I’ll ever sleep soundly again.
