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He closed his eyes. He’d known something was off. She was too jovial. Too sunny.

“What’s going on?” Donovan asked.

“I should’ve known something was up. She got a few texts and morphed right in front of me.”

“Good job,” Eric said.

“Doc, can you and Halle keep an eye on Emma?”

“Of course,” they said simultaneously.

“Did you see who the texts were from?” Carson asked him.

“No. I should’ve pushed,” he said, sprinting out the door.

Donovan and Eric followed him. They checked the parking lot. Her car was gone.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

“She left her phone,” Carson called down from an open window. They looked up as she showed it to them. “It was in her room.” They hurried back up the stairs and burst through the door, only to have her add, “It’s locked.”

“Emma,” Michael said.

They rushed into Emma’s room. It took some coaxing, but Michael managed to stir her awake. “I’m sorry, Squirt, but can you open your mother’s phone?”

She rubbed her eyes and yawned, stealing every heart in the room. “Yes.”

A synchronized sigh of relief filled the small area. The doc helped her sit as she took the phone, untangled a curl from her lashes with her tiny fingers, and entered her mother’s password. She handed it back to Michael.

“Thank you, Emma.” He took it, navigated to Izzy’s messages, and frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“Get what?” Emma asked through another yawn.

The doc was busy listening to Emma’s chest with a stethoscope. “We might need another breathing treatment soon, sweetheart,” she said.

“Okay.”

She was such a good kid. But whatever Michael had expected to find in the phone, he found just the opposite. Strange questions, riddles, and possibly a joke? No threats. No dire warnings. Just bland messages. “It’s all very cryptic.”

“It must mean something,” Donovan said, reading over Michael’s shoulder.

“What does it say?” Eric asked.

Michael cleared his throat. “The first one just says,What did the magpie say to the ferret?”

“Oh, that’s Mommy,” Emma said.

“What?” Michael scooted closer to her. “What’s Mommy?”

“The magpie. That used to be her nickname.”

Taken aback, Michael asked, “Do you know who the ferret is?”

She shook her head.

Halle stepped farther into the room. “Ferret could mean a person, but I think they could be using it as a verb.” When seven sets of eyes landed on her, she continued. “Think about it. You said she’s been in hiding for more than five years, right? Maybe this person is saying they found her. They ferreted her out.”

Eric beamed at his friend. She beamed back, only much more bashfully.