I didn’t remember parking. One moment, I was behind the wheel. The next moment, my feet were pounding on the gravel, dashing up to the officer who was talking to my three children.
“Mommy!” they all cried in unison, reaching for me.
I bundled them in my arms, hugging them fiercely, petting their hair, trying to check that they had all their arms and legs.
“I want to be a police officer when I grow up,” Tristan said confidently, when I released them.
“What happened?” I asked, looking up at the cop.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” he said. “Your children are fine, but they’re here by themselves.”
I frowned. “That’s not right. My mom watches them while I’m at work. She should be here.”
“Grandma had to go,” Fern said. “So I called 9-1-1 for an emergency.”
“Sweetheart, what was the emergency that made Grandma leave?” I asked, trying not to show how aghast I was. My mom would never leave my kids alone in the house. Not unless something horrible had happened. “Was she hurt?”
“A man came to the door,” Tristan said. “He rang the bell.”
The officer was scribbling notes on his pad of paper. He looked at me sheepishly. “Sorry, ma’am. We’ve been here for thirty minutes and this is the most progress we’ve made with trying to figure out what happened. Your kids are very enthusiastic about law enforcement.”
“Red and blue are my favorites,” Cooper said.
I knelt in front of my kids. “I need you all to focus and think very carefully. Who was the man who came to the door? Why did Grandma have to leave? Why did you call 9-1-1?”
“Let’s start with one question at a time,” the officer suggested. “What happened first. The doorbell?”
My kids nodded eagerly. “We thought it was Mush,” Fern said.
“That’s Misha,” I said. “An old friend.” And the father of these children, though they didn’t know it yet. I didn't want to confuse anyone just yet.
“He has the best food,” Cooper confided.
“But was it Misha?” I asked before everyone could get off track. “Who was at the door?”
“Well, we thought it was Mush because he talked funny too,” Fern said.
“He talked like Misha?” I asked, then looked back to the officer. “Misha has a faint Russian accent. He grew up here. We went to Tides together.”
“He talked worse than Misha,” Fern was saying. “I couldn’t really hear him.”
“A thicker Russian accent?” I wondered. “Okay. A stranger. Someone we didn’t know.”
My kids nodded. “He wanted us to go with him, but Grandma said no.”
My heart leapt to my throat. “Why? Where did he want you to go?”
“In his car,” Tristan said, picking up the thread of the story. “He said he wanted money. Money that was his. And that we had it.” My son reached into his pockets and turned them inside out. “Mommy, we didn’t have his money. He was lying.”
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling them all in for another hug. “You all are doing so good, munchkins.”
“Grandma said we couldn’t go because Mush likes her better than us,” Cooper said, his little eyebrows drawing together in a very Mikhail-like expression. “Is that another lie? I thought Mush likes us.”
“I don’t know what that means, baby,” I said, clearing my throat as my voice cracked. “Did this man know Misha?”
Fern nodded. “He talked a lot about Mush. And Grandma said Mush was her son. Like Uncle Jon. And that Mush would give the man his money if he had Grandma ask for it. So they went.”
“Looking at a probable kidnapping with possible ransom or extortion,” the officer said into his radio. “Suspect is male, possibly Russian. Has an older woman with him.”