Officer Tatum wrote something down.
Mrs. Bell looked uncomfortable, but not sorry.
“Well,” she said, “I didn’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
The room went quiet.
I hadn’t raised my voice.
Somehow that made it sharper.
Mrs. Bell’s cheeks colored.
“I was trying to protect the girl too.”
“Were you?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Excuse me?”
I took a breath.
This was the second moral cliff.
Because yes, she had been afraid.
Maybe truly afraid.
Maybe she saw a rough-looking man outside a child’s house and thought she was doing the right thing.
But doing the right thing badly can still hurt someone.
And fear does not become wisdom just because you post it with confidence.
“You saw a man standing on a lawn,” I said. “You took his picture. You put him online. You asked strangers to identify him. You didn’t call Kinsley’s father. You didn’t call the school. You didn’t ask me. You didn’t ask Silas. You didn’t ask anyone who was there.”
