Hank Dawson had found him. Leo dropped behind the bank, his heart pounding so hard that he struggled to hear the engines stop. Through dead brush he saw Hank climb out of the pickup carrying a wooden bat. The second man wore a uniform and a badge. Leo recognized Deputy Carl Higgins, a county officer who had visited Hank's house twice and never once asked the children a question without Hank standing beside them. Higgins leaned against the white SUV as if this were an errand he wanted finished before lunch.
"Check the back," Hank said. His voice carried through the still morning air with sickening familiarity. "Boy won't have gone far. Someone at that diner said they saw a kid eating out of the trash three nights ago."
Higgins glanced toward the station and asked whether there was a custody pickup order. Hank waved a folded paper in his direction without letting him read it. "He's under my care," he said. "That's enough."
Leo closed his eyes for one second. In that second he saw Miguel folding his socks, Tessa standing quietly by the laundry door, and Ben asking whether the foster family would have pancakes on Sunday. Hank had found him because somebody had noticed a hungry child and chosen to report him instead of asking whether he needed help. The desert beyond the creek looked endless, but Leo knew Hank was familiar with the area now. He started backing away, trying to keep low among the dry branches.
His shoe caught a strand of old barbed wire half buried beneath the sand. He fell sideways into a tangle of dead limbs, and the crack echoed across the creek bed like a gunshot. Hank turned at once. "There!" he shouted.
Leo scrambled upright, but the weakened ribs and three weeks of poor food made him slower than he wanted to be. Higgins reached him before he cleared the bank. Higgins caught Leo by the back of his jacket and pulled him out of the creek bed. "There you are," he said, sounding more irritated than relieved.
"You made a lot of people waste a lot of time, kid." Leo twisted enough to see the deputy's badge and noticed the familiar scratched edge where Higgins had once caught it on a doorframe at Hank's house. That detail made the moment feel unbearable in its ordinariness. A man who had stood in the kitchen and watched Hank order children around was about to take him back there.
"I need to talk to a caseworker," Leo said. Higgins hauled him up the bank without responding. "Not Hank. Somebody else. I have injuries from before I ran." The deputy stopped just long enough to look him over.
"Then you can explain that when we get to Flagstaff," he said, in the tone adults used when they meant that the conversation was finished.
Hank was waiting beside the old pumps with the bat in one hand. He looked at Leo's sunburned face and torn clothes and smiled. "You look terrible," he said. "You know what kind of trouble you've caused me?"
Leo said nothing. Hank stepped closer. "My checks stopped coming when they marked you missing, and you've got people calling the house asking questions. You thought you could cost me money and just vanish?"