Universal Signal(s) for child or other abuse victims:

Did you intervene? Go over and speak to the child?
The method you suggest could be just as easily abused as implemented I guess.
i think that the stranger danger system works well - if you are able to run - run.
I don't know how else to respond to your post, except that I hope to God what you witnessed was a child with expressive eyes, and nothing more.

Forgive me, but if you were that concerned, i would have thought your job wouldn't matter.
Did you follow them, get the license plate?
I would have.

No, I didn't. It wasn't about the job, it was that I had no other reason to do anything, except a hunch.

If there were some sort of universal signal -- that I could have recognized, of course I would have walked away from the counter, and figured out which car they were in, but I had nothing to go on, but this feeling that she was trying to tell me something.

It could have been her dad, it could have been that everything was cool, I just don't know.