Uh huh.

He goes home. He reads some Asimov and some Pratchett and some Williams; he forgets what happens in each page after he finishes it. He vaguely tries to work. He talks to Serena without paying attention. He has sex with his mistress without paying attention. He plays with a pen. 

Zaida is being abused. No one is going to do anything about it. She has a mom and an aunt, who apparently did a very good job of raising her. 

He leans on a few people in CPS, calls in a few favors, makes a few promises, gets someone's kid an internship, gets someone's cousin let off with a warning. Everyone smiles and says "we'll get right on that, Commander Waterford" and never talks to him again. At church every weekend, Zaida is covered in bruises.

Melton is a high-ranking Eye, or he has blackmail material on someone important, or he's doing someone important a very big favor, but either way Fred can't touch him. He makes a list of the leverage he has and he thinks about the best way to use it. 

He doesn't decide that he is going to kidnap this toddler. He withdraws some cash from the bank. Assigns Nick to provide support for Chris, whose wife had just had a baby. Packs up a suitcase and leaves it in the trunk. Makes sure his tank is full of gas. Tells his subordinates that he might disappear unexpectedly, hints around that it's Eye business. Keeps an eye on her and waits for her to run off again.

Zaida is literally constantly trying to run away from her caretakers. Eventually she succeeds at running away at church again. Ellen is talking to some other adults and stops holding her hand, so she slips off and runs out to the yard behind the sanctuary.

Her plan is mostly to hang out with squirrels and collect weird-looking rocks until she's caught.

Fred notices!

"Hey kid."

"Hello!"

"How'd you like to go back to your mom?"

"Do you know where she is???"

"No, but I bet I can find out, and in the meantime you won't get hit."

Zaida looks back at the church building thoughtfully.

"I miss my mommy a lot."

"I bet. I would miss my mom too if I couldn't see her."

"OK," says Zaida. "I want Mommy and Auntie again."

Time to encourage a three-year-old to get into a strange man's car!

He has possibly made some poor decisions. 

"If you come with me into my car, I promise we will find your mommy and I won't hit you."

Hmmmm.

Her Mommy did say not to get in cars with strange men.

On the other hand, she has been doing that a lot lately. And Fred said that she's allowed to draw stars. And he says he can take her back to her mommy, and her mommy is not strange OR a man.

Zaida toddles toward the car.

That's good! He was not looking forward to what would happen if she screamed! Mostly to him but also, incidentally, to her. 

He walks with her to the car, keeping an eye out for people who might see them. No one does; the yard is pretty deserted.

Zaida needs help getting into the car, and also needs to take several seconds to figure out how to sit so she isn't hurting herself, but eventually she finds something tolerable.

"I would like to go to my mommy now."

Fred frowns when he sees that she can't sit without hurting herself. 

"Unfortunately, I don't know where your mommy is. If you know her name, we can find her soon. Did you know your mommy's address?"

She shakes her head. "My mommy is called Mommy and my Auntie is called auntie Keturah."

Well, this is going to be complicated.

Irritated at himself for being the strange man kidnapping a little girl by giving her candy, he gives Zaida a pack of Skittles. "Sorry, kid, I don't know what kind of candy you like, hope this is good."

"I like candy!"

"I'm glad, kid!"

Fred pulls away and starts driving in a scrupulously legal fashion. He can talk his way out of problems, but no sense causing problems where they aren't needed. 

"Sometimes grownups call mommies names other than 'mommy'. Can you think what grownups like Auntie Keturah called your mommy?"

"Auntie Keturah calls her Azubah."

On one hand, no surname. On the other hand, how many Keturahs whose sibling is an Azubah can there really be?

...Fred thinks about some of the people he knows from church. 

Okay, yeah, that's not going to work. 

"Sometimes grownups tell children to learn their parents' phone number and address and full name so that other grownups can help them when they're lost. Did your mommy make you learn anything to tell other grownups when you get lost?"

"I don't know those things," says Zaida. She frowns thoughtfully. "ONE time, Auntie told a lady at the restaurant that she was Keturah Teller."

Score!

"Do you remember whether you lived in Boston?"

"We don't live in Boston. I don't like Boston. We live in a little white house at the bottom of the hill. Mommy says that, so I think it's an important hill."

A hill. That narrows it down to "not Florida."

Fred will have to get out of town as quickly as possible. He's planning on heading southwest, but it would be nice to have any idea if he's going in the right direction. 

"Do you remember what it looked like where you lived? Were there cactuses, or big tall buildings, or lots of corn?"