They stared at me from behind the dog’s back. A small child.

I fell twice in my hurried march back to the building. The soles of my old Ariat roper boots were as thin as paper and just as smooth. Leaving a little kid out in a snowstorm was just the sort of thing that would draw a smile from Cecil. This was his idea of a joke. A five-car pile-up on the interstate or a grisly hit-and-run might give him laughing fits. I was limping badly when I reached the door. It was locked.

A hastily written sign was taped at eye-level, my eye-level, about six foot four in boots. BACK IN TEN MINUTES. Somehow I doubted Cecil would be back until I was well down the road. I had a schedule to keep. He knew I wouldn’t wait, not ten minutes. Not even five.

After pounding on the door and yelling Cecil’s name, I kicked at the bottom of the heavy glass. My reward was another fall. If Cecil was inside he was determined not to show himself. I walked carefully back to Island 8. The dog hadn’t moved; the kid still huddled behind it. The dog moved aside and fully revealed the child, a young boy. This was permission to move closer.

I guessed the boy’s age at five or six, brown complexion and straight, black hair cut in the shape of a bowl. He was dressed only in jeans and a short-sleeved white collared shirt. His tennis shoes looked new, the kind with blinking red lights in the heels. A piece of paper was pinned to his shirt.

I took a step closer without taking my eyes off either the dog or the boy. Neither seemed afraid, though they keenly gauged my progress. The boy never took his dark eyes from mine, not even when I reached down and gently unpinned what I assumed was a note.

PLEASE, BEN. BAD TROUBLE. MY SON. TAKE HIM TODAY. HIS NAME IS JUAN. TRUST YOU ONLY. TELL NO ONE. PEDRO

The note was printed in block letters with a black marker that had bled through the flimsy paper.