She had less, in a sense; she had known us for four minutes.

What she had that they did not was a willingness to believe what she was seeing even though believing it was inconvenient, frightening, and disruptive.

That is the thing that actually protects a child, or fails to: not the presence of evidence, but the willingness to act on it.

Everyone who failed us had access to the truth.

Our silence was loud, if anyone had chosen to hear it.

What was missing, for three years, was not information.