Chapter 2 - A Key With No Address
At the hospital, June asked three times whether Atlas had eaten dinner.
A nurse checked her temperature and the bruises on her knees. June was cold and frightened, with a scraped elbow, but her initial examination found no serious injury. Imani stayed beside the bed while the clinician spoke directly to June about what would happen next. A social worker explained that a trained interviewer would listen to her account so she would not have to tell it to every adult who entered the room.
Before anyone entered, Imani called Alicia and asked her to bring June's favorite soft blanket. Alicia did not ask whether her sister had failed as a mother; she asked what size clothes June needed and whether Imani had eaten. Imani almost broke down at the second question. She had spent the afternoon hearing strangers explain what a careful parent would have done. Alicia had been the first person to speak as though the answer was to help the family in front of her.
Malik remained outside until Imani invited him in. He had changed into a clean uniform shirt, and someone had wrapped an elastic bandage around his forearm.
“Did he get you?” June asked.
“I'm all right.”
“Did Atlas?”
“Atlas is having a very important dinner.”
June almost smiled.
Imani held the brass key inside a paper evidence bag. Malik had photographed it where June handed it over, then followed his department's evidence procedures. The fragment of receipt was in a separate bag. No one had tried the key in a random lock.
“I work nights at Caldwell's leasing office,” Imani said. “I clean after the people with offices go home. Bernice lived across the hall. She brought me a bottle of tap water last month and asked me to take a picture of it.”
“Did you?” Malik asked.
“Yeah. I sent it to management. They told me if I wanted to keep the employee discount on my rent, I should quit spreading rumors.”
She looked at her daughter. “I should've pushed harder.”
“You shouldn't have had to choose between your wages and getting an answer about the water,” Malik said.
That landed harder than comfort. Imani had spent years being advised to be patient by people whose faucets ran clear.
The nurse returned with crackers and juice for June after confirming what she could safely have. June took one cracker and set the rest on the tray. She asked whether her mother had to pay for the ambulance. Imani told her the adults would handle the bill. It was an ordinary question for a child who had seen unpaid envelopes pile up beside the microwave; hearing it in a hospital bed made Imani want to cry all over again.
The detective assigned to the case, Nia Walker, arrived with news. Quentin Voss was receiving treatment for his jaw and had been detained for questioning after witnesses described the attack. He claimed he thought Imani was trying to flee with a child he believed had been abducted. His version did not explain June's reaction or the torn glove, and investigators were seeking video from the park.
“Do you think he took her?” Imani asked.
“We're investigating that,” Nia replied. “I don't want to guess in front of June.”
Imani respected her more for that answer.
Her phone rang. The caller ID read CALDWELL OFFICE. Imani answered on speaker after telling Nia.
A woman said, “This is Ms. Caldwell's office. We're sorry about the incident. The company is offering you two nights at a hotel while we complete necessary repairs.”
“What's happening to my apartment?”
“Routine plumbing work.”
“Then why did your security director take my daughter into the park?”
A pause. “We have no information suggesting he did.”
“Listen to me. Nobody enters my unit without lawful notice or permission.”
The woman said a lawyer would call and ended the conversation.
June had been watching her mother's face.
“Are we getting kicked out?”
“I don't know yet.” Imani squeezed her hand. “But I'll tell you the truth when I do.”
At nine, Imani's neighbor Mrs. Bernice called from a number she didn't recognize. The seventy-eight-year-old retired school custodian had not been hospitalized after a fall. She had taken refuge at her sister's house because someone had entered her unit and gone through her papers.
“I gave June that key at the library,” Bernice said. “She told me she was walking home with you. I thought you were right there.”
“Why give it to a child?” Imani asked, frightened and angry.
“I shouldn't have. The man following me scared me. I saw June and made a bad choice.”
Imani let the silence sit.
Bernice continued, “It opens locker fourteen at the old bus terminal. My late husband kept his tools there. There's a folder inside. I took the water samples to a lab myself, and the report's in that folder.”
“What report?”
“Lead was found at levels the lab flagged for urgent attention in some of our samples. I told Caldwell. She told me I must have put something in the jars.”
Imani remembered June brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink. She remembered a maintenance worker painting over brown stains on the wall behind the faucet. Her stomach turned.
Nia took the call details and began arranging to collect the locker contents properly. The clock above June's bed said 9:18. It was already too late to stop the six o'clock work by showing up with a key.
Malik's phone buzzed. Investigators had reached Cedar Court. The crews had removed several sections of pipe, but an officer had obtained a pause in work while the appropriate inspectors determined what needed to be preserved.
“Several sections?” Imani said. “Where are they?”
“That,” Nia replied, “is exactly what we're trying to find out.”
June spoke from the pillow. “I know where one went.”
Every adult looked at her.
“The man in the orange vest put it in his truck.”
She pulled the blanket to her chin. “He said the other people could never know about the blue paint.”
May you like
Imani closed her eyes. At Cedar Court, every pipe slated for removal had been marked with a stripe of blue paint.
But the piece June had seen went into Quentin's unmarked truck before the plumbers ever arrived.
