Children did not wander through town alone at two in the morning unless something had driven them to it.
I swung my legs out of bed, already pulling on jeans as I pressed the phone between my ear and shoulder.
“She walked there? At night?”
“Yes,” the principal replied quietly.
“She came barefoot. Her feet are scraped from the gravel road, and she has several marks on her arms and legs.
She hasn’t spoken since she arrived.
She just keeps writing the same message on paper.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly.
“What message?”
The principal exhaled slowly.
“She keeps writing, ‘Grandpa hurt me.’”
Within seconds I was moving through the hotel room with frantic efficiency, gathering my wallet and laptop while my mind struggled to absorb what I had just heard.
