Officer Discreetly Follows Lost Boy, Then Breaks Down When He Discovers the Truth

Then, in a voice so small Sean almost missed it, Leo said, "Dad?" The man turned fully around. For one suspended second, neither of them moved. Then Leo's words came rushing out, messy and breathless, the way they do when a child has been holding everything in for too long. He said his little sister couldn't breathe. He said his mother was at the hospital. He said the landlord had come again and there had been shouting, and he didn't know what to do. He had found the old envelope and the photograph and thought that if he could just find his dad, maybe things would stop falling apart for one night.