She attempts to guide me toward the front door. “At the playground with the older kids. Ma’am, you can’t be here.”
I don’t budge, and my five-foot-eight frame is no match for her. I reach for my phone, my hand shaking.
“You need to leave now,” she says.
“I’m calling my husband.” One ring, then voice mail. “This is Malcolm Jennings. Leave me a message.”
“Malcolm, call me right away. Did you pick up Mikayla from the day care? Call me. It’s an emergency.” I disconnect the call and turn back to the girl. “Where is Mikayla?”
“She’s not here. No one came to pick her up because she was never here. Are you sure you have the right day care?”
“Are you fucking kidding?” My raised voice makes her retreat slightly. “Do you think a mother would forget where she left her child?” The room spins, and my knees are all but useless.
“Okay, ma’am—calm down. Take a breath.” She places a hand on my shoulder, and I pull away, heading back toward the kitchen.
This is a cruel mistake. She has to be here. Maybe Rebecca took her to the playground with the older kids. Maybe she went outside in the backyard when no one was looking. I glance through the kitchen window, but the yard is empty.
The front door opens, and excited-sounding voices enter. I hurry toward them. The older kids and another woman, presumably Rebecca. I scan the faces. No Mikayla.
“Where is my little girl?” The trembling of my body is uncontrollable as I walk toward them.
Rebecca’s eyes widen as she steps in front of the children, putting herself between them and me. As if I’d hurt them. I’m not the one who’s lost a child. I force a breath, but it sticks in my throat. “I’m looking for my daughter.” I need to stay calm. There’s an explanation. “Her name is Mikayla. She’s two. She was dropped off here this morning with a woman named Fran.”
Rebecca frowns. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s no one who works here by that name.”
My heart pumps so hard and fast I swear it’s about to explode from my chest. I grip the doorframe as the kids hurry past me into the kitchen. “I need to call my husband again,” I say, sliding down the wall to the floor. I hit redial. His voice mail comes on.
Why isn’t he answering? Several calls within minutes obviously indicates an emergency.
My hand shakes as I open a search engine. I’m unable to type. “Please . . . type in Saint Bishop’s High School on Maple Street . . .” I extend my cell phone to Rebecca. I need to speak with Malcolm. He will know what to do. He will know where Mikayla is.
Rebecca hesitates and looks at the other woman, but she reluctantly takes the phone.
A moment later, she hands the phone back to me. It’s ringing.
A cheery receptionist answers. “Saint Bishop’s High School. How may I—”
“I need to speak to Malcolm Jennings. He’s a tenth-grade teacher there. It’s an emergency.” My mouth is dry, and the words barely form. My hand shakes so violently I grip the phone tighter to keep from dropping it.
“Malcolm . . . Jennings, you said?”
“Yes!”
“He’s a teacher here? At this school?” More confused tones.
“Yes! Please hurry. I need to talk to him.”
“Um . . . I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t see that name listed in the teacher directory . . .”
“He just started there this year. At the beginning of the semester. He’s new.”
Rebecca and the other woman are silent. They watch. They listen. They judge.
“Hold the line, please,” the receptionist says.
“Please hurry,” I whisper. Something is wrong. I can feel it in every fiber of my body. Something terrible is happening.
Rebecca and the other girl whisper in the hall, watching me.
Come on, Malcolm! Maybe he got through his lesson planning early and picked Mikayla up. He has to know where she is.
My stomach turns, and I swallow the saliva gathering in my mouth.
“Hello, ma’am, you still here?” The school receptionist is back.
“Yes. Where’s Malcolm?”
She hesitates. “I just confirmed that there’s no teacher here by that name.”
“I told you he’s new. He just started this year.” Why is no one listening to me?
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There is a record of a Malcolm Jennings here for an interview . . . but that was last year. He was offered a position, but he never came in at the start of the school year.”
The phone slips from my hand and I can’t find a breath. My vision blurs and my body trembles.
“Ma’am . . . we’re calling the police.”
I don’t know who said it . . . the voice seems far away. But police. Yes. We need the police.
September 6—12:56 p.m.
The woman is clearly nuts.
“Aren’t you going to write any of this down?”
I turn to the officer who was first on the scene. A fairly new recruit, by the look of him. His uniform still has the original creases. He’s clean shaven, and his teenage good looks have yet to fade. His eyes still hold the optimism of a cop who thinks he can make a difference. It’s like a mirror reflection of myself . . . fifteen years ago. “I don’t need to. It’s all up here,” I say, tapping my temple.
I’ll steal his pages of notes later if I need them.
I scan the rooms of the day care, but it’s exactly what I’d expect. Multiple cribs for the babies, mats on the floor for the toddlers, high chairs, lots of toys . . . the faint lingering smell of baby shit.
“The staff say they’ve never seen her before, but she’s adamant that she left her child here. Husband can’t be reached.” He lowers his voice. “Apparently, Mrs. Jennings didn’t know her husband wasn’t working at the local high school, the way he claimed.”
“Yeah, I’ve been briefed.”
And I argued, back at the station, that what they needed was a crisp white straitjacket, not a crime-division detective. Missing kids aren’t my department. Everyone knows that. Damn Mike for taking a vacation and leaving me with a case I’d never touch, given a choice.
“Kids don’t just vanish into thin air,” Rookie Cop says.
If he stays on the job long enough, he’ll start to believe otherwise.
Loud voices in the entrance have us heading that way.
A woman ducks under the single strand of crime scene tape across the open front door. “Rebecca . . . Jacqueline!”
“Ma’am . . . you can’t enter. The day care is closed.” Rookie Cop blocks the woman’s path.
All the parents were called immediately to pick up their children once this . . . Kelsey Jennings refused to leave without her imaginary child.
I glance at Mrs. Jennings, now sitting on the floor in the hall. Carla, a department crisis therapist, sits next to her. Mrs. Jennings might be pretty, if I could see her face beneath the streaks of mascara and smeared lipstick. Yoga outfit suggests she’s just come from a workout. Meaning she’s most likely upper middle class. Suburban housewives are the only reason for midmorning group fitness classes.
Carla glances at me. “Hi, Paul,” she says, her expression confirming my gut.