Page 10 of Stolen Ones

Kim wasn’t hopeful but she had to cover all bases and treat it like every other missing child case. She had to put the conversation with Steven Harte out of her mind.

‘Have you noticed anything suspicious around the property?’ Kim asked the nursery owner as Claire ended her call. Kim caught the look of horror that crossed Andrea Newhouse’s face.

‘You don’t think she’s been taken?’ Claire asked.

‘We have to consider every possibility,’ Kim offered gently.

She knew full well that the thought would already have crossed the woman’s mind. But it didn’t have legs until it came out of someone else’s mouth.

‘We’re doing everything we can to find her, Ms Lennard. I promise you,’ Kim assured her, turning back to the business owner as she spoke.

‘Nothing suspicious that I’m aware of, Officer, but the girls are talking to all the children to see if they’ve noticed anything untoward.’

Kim turned again to Claire. ‘Has there been anything strange at home? Weird phone calls? Unusual comments from Grace?’

Claire shook her head as the tears began to gather in her eyes.

‘Grace’s father?’

Claire shook her head.

‘Are you sure he couldn’t have…?’

‘He’s dead,’ she offered, severing the tie on one of the last balloons of hope Kim had.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean…’

Claire waved away her apology.

‘CCTV?’ she asked Ms Newhouse.

She nodded and stood. ‘I have the app on my phone, but the full system is next door.’

Kim stood. Their interrogation of the system would take more than a mobile-phone app.

‘I’ll be back in a sec, Claire,’ the woman said before leaving the room.

Kim noted the business owner’s hunched apologetic demeanour as it finally hit her that she’d lost someone else’s child.

She followed the woman past a kitchen/break room to a door marked ‘Private’ at the end of the corridor. She key coded the door and pushed it open.

‘Do you need me to…?’

‘Just the password,’ Kim said, expecting the woman to move ahead and log them into the system.

‘Top drawer, yellow Post-it notes and yes, I know what you’re going to say, but I can’t remember them all.’

Oh, if only it was one of their priorities to police password security instead of dead bodies and missing children.

‘Thanks, we’ll be fine.’

Bryant took the seat closest to the keyboard and mouse. Although not technically minded like Stacey or Penn, he was adept at navigating his way around most CCTV systems, and this looked like a decent set-up.

Bryant logged in using the password from the Post-it note.

The screen filled with mini screens, sixteen in total. In the bottom left-hand corner was a label for each location.

‘Where to start?’ Bryant asked.