Tag gave his face a quick scrub with both hands to get the blood flowing again. He patted his pockets for a second—hips, back pockets, hips again just in case—and realized he’d left his phone downstairs. His car was still being “not stolen” with Bass.
“We need to call an ambulance,” he said. “Do you have a phone?”
Maria didn’t look up from the baby as she shook her head. “It only lets you call them. No one else.”
It sounded like paranoia, but it also didn’t sound impossible. Some of his friends with kids basically used the phone as electronic tether. They could track it, shut it off, take a photo with it, all from the comfort of their own screen, wherever they were. Maybe Maria’s parents had given it to her.
“All right, then,” he said. “I left my phone downstairs, so I’ll go and make the call. Why don’t you pack up your stuff and anything that Ribka will need?”
Maria looked around her flat with blank eyes, as though the idea was too much for her, but then she shuffled toward the bedroom. Tag went into the bathroom and turned off the shower. The sudden silence made him realize how loud the batter of water had been. He took the stairs down two at a time and ducked into the apartment just long enough to find his phone—on the charger, where else—so he could make the call on the way back upstairs.
In hindsight, he supposed, it wasn’t really a surprise when he burst back into Maria’s apartment to find her gone and Ribka strapped into a baby carrier in the middle of the room.
Shit.
