Rescue from Darkness

by Bonnie Vanak

  He looked. Sweet kid. Brown hair to her shoulders, more curly than straight. Round face. Big blue eyes.

  “Cameras?” A.L. asked, looking around.

  “No.”

  “The whole building has been searched?” A.L. asked.

  “Yes. Inside and the immediate perimeter of the building.”

  It would have been too fucking easy if she’d been hiding in a closet. “So we’ve got a five-year-old who hasn’t been seen for over ten hours?” A.L. said. That had to be their priority. Find the kid. Then figure out what had happened and who was at fault. The temperature in Baywood had been a pleasant seventy-six today, according to the weather app on his phone. He’d checked it at the airport. Tonight it would get down to midfifties. Not great for a kid wearing what Rena had described.

  He looked down the long hallway that led to the back door. Behind the center was a parking lot for staff and beyond that was rural Wisconsin—lots of corn and beans that hadn’t yet been harvested and even some pastureland for dairy cows. If the child had been dropped off this morning but never found her way to a classroom, was it possible that she’d somehow made her way out the door and wandered off somewhere? Or had someone taken her?

  Both were terrifying thoughts.

  “I’ve already reached out to the state police,” Rena added. “And made a request to the state Justice Department to issue an Amber Alert.”

  That was how it worked. The police couldn’t unilaterally issue an Amber Alert. They requested and the Justice Department approved. Most people thought about Amber Alerts in connection to motor vehicles, assuming the purpose was to get as many eyes watching for a particular vehicle on the road. However, it could be used anytime a child seventeen or under was believed to be at risk of serious harm or death and if there was enough information to make it worthwhile. Here they had location and time of disappearance and a good description of the child. More than enough.

  The Amber Alert would be broadcast on radio and television every thirty minutes for the first two hours and then every hour for the next three hours.

  Also mobile phones would be lighting with a text message and signs on the highway would also share the information.

  “Other social media?” he asked.

  “Post is getting written right now, asking for volunteers to immediately report to this location, but once I knew you were on the way, I waited. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I let Chief Faster know what was going on and he’ll contact the FBI.”

  She’d accomplished a great deal in less than fifteen minutes. But that was how it worked with missing kids. Balls to the wall from now on out. And while he wasn’t a big fan of Faster, their new chief of police who’d been on the job now for about six months, he should be capable of reaching out to the feds. Getting resources quickly from them would be very helpful. They had experts who could lead the search activities and provide everything from flashlights and snacks to scent-trained dogs.

  “The chief said he’d send Ferguson and Blithe,” Rena said. “Faster wants us to focus on figuring out what happened this morning and let the two of them coordinate with the FBI on the search.”

  That would work. They were both solid detectives. A.L. trusted them. Not as much as he trusted Rena, but neither of them had been his partner for five years.

  Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it. “Amber Alert is approved,” she said, looking up at him.

  “Okay.” She knew as well as he did that once the social media post and/or the Amber Alert went, the press would be on this story like flies on shit. But it would also bring in the volunteers. And they were going to need them for any substantial search activity.

  “I want to talk to the parents before we push both the alert and all other social media. Tell them we need five minutes.”

  Rena typed as they walked down the art-lined hallway. They’d had a box—hell, Jacqui might still have it—of similar masterpieces that Traci had created. Every night before he’d left for work—he’d been doing nights in those years—he’d made a big deal out of what Traci had produced that day.

  What the fuck would he have done if one of those days she simply hadn’t come home?

  He knocked on the classroom door before pulling it open. Leah Whitman was perched awkwardly on a small plastic chair. Troy was in the far corner of the room, his back to the door, his cell phone at his ear. He turned when he heard the door and ended his conversation. He put his phone in his pocket as he crossed the room. He was wearing matching blue work pants and shirt and he smelled faintly of oil and sweat.

  “Any word?” he asked, looking at Rena.

  “No, sir,” she said. “This is my partner, Detective McKittridge.” She turned to A.L. “Troy Whitman.”

  A.L. stuck out his hand. “I’m sorry for the circumstances, sir. But we’re going to do everything we can to find your daughter.”

  Now the woman stood. “I’m Leah Whitman. This is just terrifying.”

  “It’s crazy,” Troy said, in a tone that sounded as if he was correcting his wife.

  Terrifying? Crazy? For more than ten hours, a five-year-old had been unaccounted for. It was no time to quibble over words. A.L. flipped open his notebook. He wrote the date and by habit, looked at his watch. Notes were always dated and timed. It was twenty-three minutes after six, or 18:23 in military time. Then he did the math, using seven fifteen that morning as the floor. That’s when the clock had started clicking. Didn’t matter that they’d just heard about it. What mattered was how long the child hadn’t been seen. They were somewhere near the start of hour twelve and that’s what he wrote on the second line.

  Behind before they’d barely gotten started.

  “Can you walk me through your day?” A.L. asked.

  “It was just a day, an ordinary day,” Troy Whitman said.

  “A few details would be helpful,” A.L. said, looking up. “Either one of you can start.”

  “I left the house early,” Leah said.

  “What do you do, Mrs. Whitman?” Rena asked.

  “I’m a paralegal at Bailey Shepherd.”

  The law firm of Bailey Shepherd was located just down the street from the police station. On the rare days that he took time for lunch, he passed it on his way to his favorite diner. “Why did you leave the house early?”

  “I had...a meeting.”

  “Where?”

  “Madison.”

  “And what time did it start?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  It wasn’t a hard or tricky question. A.L. kept his gaze steady.

  “Eight o’clock,” Leah said.

  “Thank you,” A.L. said. “What time did you leave your house?”

  “Six thirty. Maybe even a few minutes earlier. Emma was still sleeping when I left. The last thing I did was look into her room.” She turned to her husband.

  He took the ball. “I woke her up about 6:45. She got dressed and ate a bowl of cereal. She watched a little television while we were waiting for Leah’s mom to pick her up.”

  “She was late?” Rena asked.

  “No. We were early. I guess I was anxious to get going. Leah normally takes care of mornings. I do afternoons. Anyway, Leah’s mom got there and she brought Emma here.”

  “Anything odd or off about the pickup?” A.L. asked.

  “No. I mean, I saw her pull up and Emma and I met her at the car. She made a comment about it. That I hadn’t even given her a chance to come inside.” He looked at his wife.

  “My mom...repeats herself,” Leah said, almost apologetic. “I guess I’m used to it, but it drives Troy crazy.”

  “I needed to get to work,” Troy said, his tone testy. “I have to work. Especially...” His voice trailed off.

  A.L. gave him a minute.

  “Especially now. We’re busy,” he said.

 
; Definitely some tension between Troy and Leah. A.L. had a feeling it wasn’t the first time they had argued about her mother. It was the kind of argument he was familiar with. His ex-wife had been a daddy’s girl and her dad had been a pompous ass that got in A.L.’s grille whenever possible. But A.L. had generally bit his tongue. Even now, on the rare occasions when the whole family gathered, he tried to remember that whatever immediate pleasure might be derived from going toe-to-toe with the man would quickly dissipate if Traci felt torn between her father and her grandfather.

  His ex-wife had never been very good as peacemaker and he wasn’t quite sure yet if Leah Whitman was giving it a go. A.L. focused on Troy. “So she and Emma drive off. What do you do?”

  “I went to work.”

  “Where do you work, Mr. Whitman?” A.L. asked.

  “Garage on Division. It’s my business.”

  A.L. caught a shift in Rena’s eyes. Brief. Nobody else probably saw it. He made a mental note to ask her later. Garage on Division had been a Baywood landmark since the sixties. It had changed hands some years back. That must have been when Troy Whitman had purchased it. “You worked all day?” A.L. asked.

  “Yeah. Until I knocked off and drove here. At first, I was just pissed that the door was locked. And then I was told that all the children had been picked up. I figured that Leah had gotten off work early and picked her up. So I called her. She was still at work. Then I called Elaine.”

  Rena had already told him the next part but he wanted to hear it again. “Walk me through that conversation,” he said.

  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.

  “They’d say the same about you?” A.L. asked.

  “I think they would,” Leah said.

  “Brother’s name and number?” A.L. asked.

  “This seems like a waste of time,” Troy said. But, nevertheless, he pulled up the contact information for a Travis Whitman. It was a different address than the parents. A.L. copied everything down.

  “Married? Children?” A.L. asked.

  “Divorced. More than ten years now. No children. His ex is remarried with two kids and lives in Montana. And before you ask, there are no issues between us and Travis.”

  “Great, thanks,” A.L. said. “Now let’s talk about your cell phone.”

  When A.L. filled him in on the details, Troy raised an eyebrow. Not unexpected. Who would like the idea of somebody listening to all his or her private cell phone calls? He said nothing, however, until A.L. was finished. Then he asked, “When will that start?”

  “As soon as we can make a few phone calls,” A.L. said.

  “Fine. Do whatever you need to do.”

  A.L. entered his number and Rena’s into Troy’s cell. Just as he finished, Rena’s cell phone buzzed.

  She looked at it quickly. Then at the Whitmans. “Amber Alert is out. Social media requests for volunteers to search are circulating. We’ve got resources outside that will organize the people who show up.”

  “I want to search,” Troy said.

  “That’s fine,” A.L. said. “But I think one of you needs to be home. In the event that Emma somehow winds up there. Can you do that?” he asked, looking at Leah.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “We’ll send an officer with you. You won’t be left alone.”

  Leah simply shrugged. A silent whatever.

  A.L. understood. She wanted her kid found. Nothing else was really important.

  There was a knock on the classroom door. Alice Quest stuck her head inside. “Kara Wiese is here. And I just saw Elaine Broadstreet pull into the parking lot.”