Maya considered that. "Maybe," she said. "And that's part of why what happened is wrong. He should have stopped because I was a person who hadn't threatened anyone. He shouldn't have needed my job title."
Zoe looked down at her hands. "I wish I'd been there."
"I don't," Maya said immediately. "I am very glad you weren't."
Her daughter moved across the room and sat close enough that their shoulders touched. They remained like that for a while, the television off, the afternoon sunlight slowly withdrawing from the carpet. When Zoe finally spoke, her voice had changed. "Are you scared?"
"I was."
"Are you now?"
Maya could have claimed she was not, but she had promised herself long ago that she would not teach Zoe strength by pretending fear did not exist. "A little," she admitted. "Mostly I'm angry."
"What are you going to do?"
"First I'm going to take care of these knees. Then I'm going to make sure the truth is preserved. After that we'll see."
Zoe leaned against her. "You always say 'we'll see' when you've already made a plan."
Maya smiled despite the pain. "Do I?"
"Always. It's annoying."
That evening, Maya called her mother, who lived forty minutes away and had raised her to believe that dignity was something nobody could give or take. The older woman listened as Maya described the traffic stop, then asked only two questions. Was she safe at home, and had a doctor seen her injuries? After Maya answered both, her mother said she would be there in the morning to help with Zoe and the household while Maya recovered.
"You don't have to," Maya protested.
"I know," her mother said. "I'm coming anyway."
The call ended. Maya carried the medical papers into her home office, a room filled with shelves, family photographs, and neatly labeled boxes of old cases. She set the documents beside her computer, then stood very still as she looked at the closed door. Behind it lay the professional life she had worked years to build, a life that gave her knowledge and contacts many victims never had. For the moment, however, she wanted none of those advantages to change the central fact of what had happened on the roadside.