The stranger stopped when the girl refused to answer.

He recovered quickly.

“She’s scared.”

I didn’t move.

“Sir, what’s your relationship to the child?”

“I’m her uncle.”

“Name?”

“Michael.”

“Last name?”

He hesitated.

Only half a second.

But I’d learned to notice half seconds.

Brick noticed too.

“What did you call her?”

The man frowned.

“Emma.”

Brick shook his head.

“The bracelet says Ava.”

The man looked at the girl’s wrist.

That was enough.

He didn’t know her name.

He only knew what he’d seen online.

---

The woman with the livestream suddenly stepped forward.

“You officers are making this complicated.”

Brick looked at her.

“You put her bracelet on camera.”

She shrugged.

“That’s how people find missing children.”

“No.”

Brick’s voice became cold.

“That’s how people find children who don’t know they’re being hunted.”

The room went silent.

---

The hospital nurse finally stepped forward.

Her name was Erin Wallace.

She had been treating the girl for dehydration and a fractured wrist.

“I found her outside the south entrance.”

“She was alone.”

“She wouldn’t speak.”

“I was waiting for child services.”

The livestream woman interrupted.

“I was trying to help.”

Erin looked directly at her.

“You were filming her.”

The woman said nothing.

Brick closed his eyes.

He knew what was happening.

I could see it.

“Tell me,” I said.

“What are we missing?”

He looked at the child.

Then at the bluebird inside his vest.

“Years ago, my daughter disappeared.”

My partner glanced toward him.

Brick continued.

“Someone used a photograph of her hospital bracelet to locate her.”

He swallowed.

“We never found her.”

His hands trembled against the wall.

“I spent eighteen months in prison because I attacked the man I thought had taken her.”

“You were convicted?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do it?”

Brick looked at me.

“I broke his phone.”

“Not him.”

“I grabbed his camera.”

“I destroyed the evidence he was trying to broadcast.”

“Because it showed my daughter’s location.”

The room went silent.

He stared at the bluebird.

“I was wrong about one thing.”

“What?”

“The man wasn’t the person who took her.”

“He was the person helping someone else find her.”

---

I looked at the livestream phone.

The woman’s camera was still running.

Comments were appearing by the second.

People were asking where the hospital was.

What room the child was in.

What her name was.

The woman had been broadcasting every detail.

And thousands of strangers were watching.

Suddenly the situation became very different.

This wasn’t journalism.

It was exposure.

---

My partner grabbed the device.

“We’re shutting this down.”

The woman fought him.

“That’s censorship!”

“No,” I replied.

“It’s evidence.”

She froze.

Then Brick suddenly looked toward the hospital entrance.

Three men had appeared behind the glass doors.

All wearing dark baseball caps.

All looking inside.

“That’s them,” he whispered.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how?”

He pointed toward one man’s hand.

A small bluebird keychain hung from it.

Exactly like the one stitched inside his vest.

The same symbol.

The same symbol associated with his daughter’s disappearance.

The men turned and walked away.

Police officers chased them into the parking garage.

One was caught.

Another escaped.

The third abandoned a backpack.

Inside were printed photographs of children leaving hospitals across three states.

The victims had all appeared on livestreams.

Every photograph showed their hospital bracelets.

And every image had the same bluebird symbol in the corner.

Brick stared at the photographs.

“I thought this ended with my daughter.”

“It didn’t.”

The little girl suddenly whispered something.

We all leaned closer.

“I know where the bluebird comes from.”

Brick froze.

“Where?”

She pointed toward the cream-coated woman.

“Her bag.”

— END OF PART 2 —