My supervisor asked where I had found the note.
I handed it over in an evidence sleeve because by then my hands had remembered the job.
He read the first line.
His jaw shifted.
Then he read the second.
Please don’t take them back to him.
The woman by the SUV started crying when she heard one of the babies make a sound.
Her husband turned away and pressed his hand against his eyes.
Nobody asked if it was a prank anymore.
The torn scrap on the boy’s shirt bothered me more than the note itself.
A warning is one thing.
A missing warning is another.
It meant there had been more information.
It meant someone had tried to remove part of the message.
Or someone had been interrupted while leaving it.
Or someone had left two notes, and only one had survived the ride, the heat, or the hands that put those babies in the box.
