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answer, just more squirming. Sophie scanned the ER doors. They were automatic, but they stood permanently open now as a steady stream of people rushed in and out. Despite the signs posted around, there was a cell phone clutched in almost every hand,and people were babbling away frantically. Everyone was looking for someone—a daughter, a boyfriend, a sorority sister. Sophie had positioned herself strategically by the entrance, and almost everyone glanced at her. But their gazes didn’t linger, and she knew they hadn’t come here searching for this brown-haired little girl.
    “Let’s go for a walk.” Sophie tried to ease the girl off her legs, but she clung tighter. “Come on. Just a short one.”
    Sophie scooped her onto her hip and managed to elbow her way through the mob of people swarming a table where a list of names was being maintained by a besieged staffer. It was worse than a bar after a football game, and Sophie didn’t have her usual tricks available to get someone’s attention. She resorted to rudeness and elbowed a skinny guy right out of her way.
    “Ex
cuse
me,” she said, and the woman looked up from her handwritten list. “This child is missing her mother.” Sophie winced at the words, but it couldn’t be helped. “They were separated on campus, and I need to know if her mom came through here—”
    “Name?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re not family?”
    “No. Look, her mother’s pregnant. She was injured. She was taken away in a separate ambulance and—”
    Someone jostled her out of the way, and she tripped backward, almost dropping the girl. Sophie turned and snarled, and when she looked back, the woman was bombarded with other questions.
    Sophie scooted away from the crush of people. Her chair was already taken. She found a tiny bit of spacebeside a ficus plant and leaned against the wall there as she pulled out her phone to make another round of calls.
    Once again, no answer at San Marcos PD, probably because every parent of every kid at this college was trying to get through. She scrolled through her call list and tried the sheriff’s office again, and again, nothing. She tried the local CPS office, but was once again routed through a message system and dumped on someone’s voice mail.
    Sophie adjusted the girl on her hip and reached deep for some patience. She left her name and yet another urgent message, along with her phone number.
    The girl looked up at her as she clicked off, and Sophie forced a smile.
    “Is your head feeling better?”
    An ambulance screamed right up to the door, drowning out the question. The girl burrowed her face against Sophie’s neck until the siren finally ceased.
    “Hey, you!” Sophie caught the sleeve of a man in scrubs as he hurried past.
    He looked at her like a deer in the headlights. “I need a nurse here. This girl needs medical attention, and I also have to find her parents.”
    He glanced over his shoulder at the exam rooms swarming with people.
    “Her mother was badly injured,” Sophie said. “She’s short, brown hair, about eight months pregnant. Is she back there, do you know?”
    “Uh, I really don’t—”
    “Check.
Please
. This child doesn’t have a parent here. I don’t even know her name.”
    He stepped back, and Sophie caught his hand. “Wait.” She plucked a pen from the pocket of his scrubs and shifted the girl onto her hip. “I’m going to write down my cell number.” He had hairy arms, so she wrote on the back of his hand. “My name’s Sophie,” she said, desperately trying to make a personal connection. “Find out if there’s a pregnant woman back there and call me.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Her injuries looked very serious, so she may be in surgery.”
Or the morgue
. “But I at least need her name. I’ve got to get in touch with this child’s family.”
    “I’ll do what I can.” He glanced down at his hand and jogged off, and Sophie slumped against the wall. She felt faint, queasy.