“Daddy put something inside my sister’s belly,” a seven-year-old girl told the desk officer. Then she clarified, “He made her swallow it and said not to tell.” Her twin curled around her stomach while the first girl produced an empty medicine syringe hidden inside her shoe. The officer called an ambulance and entered the pharmacy code into his computer. When their father’s name appeared as the prescriber, he quietly locked the station doors.
The rain had started just before four, tapping against the front windows of the police station in quick, nervous bursts.
Inside, the air smelled like burnt coffee, wet pavement, and the dusty heat of an old box fan turning behind the front desk.
Officer Daniel Reed was finishing a parking report when the glass doors opened and two little girls stepped inside holding hands.
They looked so much alike that, for one second, Daniel assumed they were simply dressed for the weather in matching gray hoodies, jeans, and worn sneakers.
Then he noticed that one of them was bent forward.
She kept one arm wrapped around her stomach and leaned into her sister with every step.
