Troy threw a hand up in the air. “I don’t know. I think I said something like ‘I’m at the day care and Emma isn’t here. Do you have her?’”
“And what did Leah’s mom say?”
“She said no. That she hadn’t seen her since she’d dropped her off this morning at the day care. That she’d walked her inside and handed her off to her teacher by the front door.”
“Did she say ‘teacher’ or was she more specific? Did she say a name?”
Troy closed his eyes briefly. “She said Ms. Wiese. That’s what the kids call her. Ms. Wiese.”
“Does Emma know your phone numbers?” He remembered drilling that into Traci’s head when she’d been about four or five.
“Mine. Maybe,” Leah said. “We’ve been working on it.”
“How about your address?”
“I think she would recognize our street and maybe some landmarks along the way to either my mom’s house or to Lakeside Learning Center. Those are the two places that she goes to most of the time.” Leah paused, then looked straight into A.L.’s eyes. “Do you think she wandered off or was she...taken?”
He’d seen two child abductions in his career. Both had been many years ago, before he’d come to Baywood. One had been a noncustodial parent that had ended well after a tense fourteen hours. The other had been much worse. The eight-year-old boy had been killed by his abductor, who was ultimately shot and killed by the police.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“We don’t have any money to speak of,” Leah said. “For a ransom.”
Ransom payments were for the movies. The sick bastards who took kids often had other plans. Not that it was common for kids to be taken by strangers. Most missing children were taken by a noncustodial spouse or other family member. “Emma is your biological daughter?” he asked.
“Yes,” both answered.
“No previous marriages for either of you?”
“No,” Troy said. Leah shook her head.
“Troy, who were you speaking with when we entered the room?” A.L. asked.
“My brother. He lives in Milwaukee.”
“Any other siblings for either of you?” Rena asked.
They both shook their heads.
“This is a very difficult time, I know,” said A.L. “But unfortunately, when we have a missing child, we need to make sure that we’ve done everything we can to find her. And everything includes the police taking a look at your house and your vehicles. I’d like your permission to do both.”
Now the Whitmans looked at each other. Leah spoke first. “You don’t think we had anything to do with this.” Her tone was incredulous.
“Of course not,” Rena said.
It was the right response, regardless of whether they did or didn’t. And right now, A.L. had no opinion. He’d hold on to that as long as he could. A good cop had instincts and he followed them. A really good cop did the same but he didn’t let his mind settle on one path and discount other options that needed to be examined.
But there was no sense in alienating the parents or adding unnecessary angst to their lives by making them feel as if they were already on trial. Always better if everyone was cooperating.
“I think the time would be better spent looking for my daughter,” Troy said.
“We’re going to do that, too,” A.L. assured him. He looked at his watch. “Right about now, an Amber Alert and some other social media are going to hit. Is there anybody that you need to contact first before they hear the news?” He looked at Troy. He’d already talked to his brother.
“I’d better call my parents,” Troy said.
“Where do they live?” Rena asked.
“Milwaukee,” he said.
That’s where his brother lived. Maybe not in the same place, thought A.L. It still seemed odd that the brother hadn’t taken care of letting the grandparents know. But family dynamics were always weird. He watched Troy again step away to the corner of the room.
“Anybody else?” Rena asked gently, looking at Leah.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to anybody right now.”
That was understandable. But once word got out, people were going to want to reach out to her. Many in comfort. Some in curiosity. Maybe even a couple assholes who were salivating to get a first-person account of someone else’s tragedy.
Anything to make their own day better.
“Do you have a home phone or just your mobile phones?” A.L. asked.
“We both just have cell phones,” Leah said. “But maybe I’ll just turn mine off.”
“No. We don’t want you to do that. We need to be able to reach you. Can I see your phone?”
She handed it to him. He entered both his and Rena’s numbers. “Now you’ll know that it’s one of us calling.” He paused. “If Emma has been taken, and we don’t know that, but if, we’re going to want to monitor both your and Troy’s phones. Is that okay?” He could make it happen one way or another but again, always easier when a person simply agreed. “That way, if a call comes in that is in any way related to Emma’s disappearance, we’ll have another set of ears and the technology to hone onto anything that might be helpful to us.”
“Like?” Leah asked.
“Speech. Regional dialect. Background noises that might give us a clue to where Emma is. And we’d be able to immediately start to identify the location where the call originated.”
“Can you let Troy know?” Leah said dully.
“Of course,” Rena said. “We know this is tough. But we’re going to do everything we possibly can to find her. I promise.”
Troy walked back. “Well, they know,” he said. “They were going to jump in the car but I told them to wait...until we knew more.”
“What are your parents’ names?” A.L. asked.
“Perry and LuAnn Whitman.”
“Address and telephone number?”
Troy hesitated but then rattled off an address as well as a cell number for his dad, then his mom. “Are you going to call them?” he asked.
A.L. shrugged. “I’m not sure at this point. You have a good relationship with your parents?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Both of you?” he asked, looking at Leah.
“Perry and LuAnn are lovely people,” she said.