The first thing I noticed was not the girl.
It was the way she moved.
At 4:14 on a freezing Tuesday morning, dispatch patched a DOT traffic camera feed from Interstate 40 onto my cruiser screen, and the highway looked like every highway looks at that hour.
Black pavement.
White headlights.
Semi-trucks pushing through the dark like they had somewhere better to be.
Then the camera angle shifted, and I saw a child standing on the overpass ledge.
She was small enough that for half a second my mind rejected what my eyes were seeing.
Bare feet.
Thin legs.
A sweatshirt too big for her body.
