She looked about sixteen. Maybe younger if fear had not hollowed her face the way it had. Her hair was tangled and pale, her eyes red-rimmed, her sweatshirt several sizes too big. She was shaking hard enough that I thought for one terrible second she might actually collapse.
“Please,” she said again. “Please don’t call the police. He promised we were safe here.”
He.
I stared at her.
“Who promised?” I asked. “Who are you?”
Before she could answer, another woman appeared behind her and placed one hand lightly but firmly on the girl’s shoulder.
The second woman was in her thirties, maybe, with dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck and the wary, sharpened face of somebody who had learned that the first question in any encounter is not what you want, but whether you are safe enough to answer. Her eyes moved over me in one quick assessing sweep—coat, purse, phone, posture, shoes—and I could almost see her deciding how dangerous I was.
“Who are you?” she asked.