Carol marched across the grass, phone already in her hand. "Are these your children?"
Marquee kept his voice calm. He had heard this tone before in grocery stores, school lobbies, parking lots, and places where people decided authority belonged to them simply because they were uncomfortable. "No, ma'am. I'm watching them for their mother."
"Where is their mother?"
"At work."
Carol's eyes narrowed. "And she just left them with you?"
Caleb leaned forward from inside the van. "He's Pastor Brown."
"I wasn't speaking to you," Carol snapped.
Sophie's face changed immediately. Marquee saw it, the tiny flinch children learned when adults made the world feel unsafe. He stepped slightly between Carol and the van, not aggressively, just enough to signal that the children were not going to be dragged into a stranger's suspicion.
"Ma'am," he said, "these children know me. Their mother knows me. I'm the director of Every City Nation Church Youth Outreach. We're leaving the park now."
"I don't believe you," Carol said. Her voice was loud enough now that people at nearby benches began to look over. "You expect me to believe some man just takes two children to his house because he says he's a pastor?"
Marquee exhaled slowly. "I don't need you to believe anything. I need you to step back from my vehicle."
"Your vehicle?" Carol lifted her phone higher. "I'm recording you. Everybody needs to see this."
A teenager on a skateboard slowed near the sidewalk. A couple pushing a stroller stopped. Two men at the basketball court looked over. Marquee felt the park turn toward him like a spotlight.
"Lady, please," he said. "You're scaring the kids."
"Good," Carol said. "Maybe they should be scared."
Sophie whispered from the van, "Pastor Brown, are we in trouble?"
Marquee turned his head just enough to smile at her. "No, sweetheart. You're not in trouble. Keep your seat belt on."
Carol began speaking into her phone as if narrating evidence for a court. "This man is putting two white children into a van at Maple Ridge Park. He claims he's watching them, but there are no parents here."
"They are safe," Marquee said, his voice firmer now. "You can call their mother if you want."
"Oh, I'm sure you'd give me some fake number." Carol stepped closer to the van door. "Do these kids belong to anyone?" she shouted toward the park. "Does anybody know these children?"
Caleb's face flushed. "Stop yelling at us!"
"Caleb," Marquee said gently. "Let me handle it."
Carol glared at him. "Don't you tell him what to do."