That was enough to make Mendez want to go to the interview room next door and assault Roland Ballencoa himself.

“Why didn’t you go to a security person?”

He asked because it was what he was supposed to ask even though it sounded completely stupid. Would he have gone to a security guard if he had been the parent and Roland Ballencoa had been taking pictures of his kid? What if Leah Lawton had been Haley Leone or one of his nieces? He would have taken Ballencoa’s camera away from him and beat the shit out of him with it.

“And tell them what?” she asked. “Is it against the law to take photographs in a public park? Would someone have put a stop to it?”

“You went after him,” he said.

“He took my daughter,” she returned. “He took my oldest child. He was taking pictures of my baby—like he could just reach out and touch her if he wanted to. And he did it right in front of me. What would you have done?”

“I’m not judging you, Lauren,” he said quietly. “I need to know what you’re up against here. He’s in the next room telling another detective he wants to press charges against you. On the face of it, you committed assault.”

“You’re going to put me in jail?” she said, stunned with disbelief. “That’s priceless! He can abduct my daughter, do whatever to her—rape her, kill her—and you want to put me in jail because I broke his fucking camera?”

“I don’t want to put you in jail,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to keep that from happening. But you’ll probably be charged with something. Simple assault—it’s a misdemeanor. You’d have to pay a fine.”

“A fine!”

“You went after him in front of witnesses in a public place—”

“He was going after my daughter in front of witnesses in a public place,” she argued. “But that’s okay. He was only using a camera—this time.”

“You can’t take matters into your own hands,” he said, miserable because that was exactly what he would have wanted to do himself.

“But you people won’t do anything to stop him!” she shouted. “Whose hands am I supposed to leave it in? He put a note in my mailbox yesterday. It said, ‘Did you miss me?’ It’s like a game to him. He gets to break the law, then hide behind it, then twist it around and use it against his victims. I can’t stop him, and you won’t stop him. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Why didn’t you call me about this note?” Mendez asked. “Where is it?”