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“That sounds more like two girls,” Emmy said. “Is there a pattern between Madison’s phone, Cheyenne’s flip phone, and the burner? Like did Madison text with both Cheyenne and the burner simultaneously?”

“Hold on.” Virgil was clearly looking at the records.

“Okay, the short answer is no. It looks like Madison only called Cheyenne’s flip phone before and after summer school hours.

During school, she was exclusively contacting the burner, and that’s like—Jesus, a lot.

Fifty, maybe a hundred texts over the course of six hours.

Then they stop when school is out, then they pick back up around midnight and continue off and on until the morning. ”

“The burner has to belong to Cheyenne,” Emmy said. “A predator or dealer wouldn’t be on the phone that much. It leaves a record. He’d want to interact in person. Less chance of being overheard. Lower risk of the parents finding out.”

Gerald asked, “What about the third number?”

“That’s the interesting thing,” Virgil said. “Eight days ago, the burner phone went dark, then a third number came online, also pay-as-you-go. Madison stopped communicating with the old number and picked up the new one. Same frequency, same hours.”

“Maybe the burner was lost?” Emmy asked. “Stolen?”

“Whatever the reason, we need to lay our hands on those phones,” Virgil said.

“You have to have the actual device to read the texts. Paul gave us the password for Madison’s iPhone, but I couldn’t get the damn thing to power on.

It’s not just the glass that got cracked. The bits and pieces are loose inside.”

“Was it backed up to the cloud?” Emmy asked.

“No, they opted her out ’cause she had so many texts and pictures it was blowing through their data plan,” Virgil said. “I’ve got the phone bagged and ready to go to the GBI lab along with the Bakers’ desktop computer.”

“Delay that,” Gerald said.

Emmy looked at her father. She knew that he’d decided to call in the FBI.

She asked Virgil, “What about the Bakers? Can they access records on Cheyenne’s flip phone?”

“Felix doesn’t have an online account. You need a code to activate it. He’s going to call the business office as soon as it’s open in the morning.”

Emmy thought it was weird that an engineer didn’t have everything set up electronically.

“If you’re trying to be sneaky, you buy a burner phone because you can pay cash and you don’t have to give your real name.

You wouldn’t buy it online because you’d have to use a credit card, so you’d go to a brick-and-mortar to get it.

There can’t be more than a couple of places where Cheyenne or Madison could buy a burner.

I’d start with the Good Dollar and the kiosk at the outlet mall. ”

Gerald said, “Could be the kidnapper bought the phones.”

She hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense that the man controlling Cheyenne would also control who she spoke with.

Gerald said, “The bulge in Madison’s pocket.”

Emmy felt her heart sink. She’d stupidly thought Madison had packed a bag of snacks. “She could’ve had a flip phone on her at the park. Dad, there’s no way this was random. The kidnapper is sophisticated and seasoned at grooming girls.”

Gerald said, “Put a team on the List.”

Emmy had known it was coming, but it still hit her like a hammer to the chest. The List referred to all the registered sex offenders in the county.

“Shit,” Virgil mumbled. He was feeling it, too. “Yes, boss.”

Gerald closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

His eyes stayed on the road. Emmy listened to the white noise of the car wheels traveling over asphalt.

They were on Vernon Road, named after her great-great-grandfather.

Soon, they would take a left onto Delilah Avenue, named after her great-great-grandmother.

Hannah lived just behind Delilah on Clay Street, which was named after the first Clifton who’d stolen the land from the Creek tribe in 1822 and plastered his name all over the county.

“Emmy Lou?” Gerald said.

She turned to look at him. She knew what was coming before he even said it.

“You’re gonna have to talk to Hannah.”

Emmy slowly nodded her head.

“Need to search Madison’s room. Find out if she’s been hiding anything. Look for the missing burner. Any other burners. Cash. Drugs. Pills.”

Emmy kept nodding.

Gerald pushed up the turn signal to take a left onto Delilah.

Emmy looked at her watch. It was one in the morning, yet the lights were on in every single house.

There were open garage doors, empty carports, so many people walking in the street with flashlights that they looked like a swarm of fireflies.

They were all looking for Madison and Cheyenne.

Gerald nosed the car into the curb in front of Dr. Carl’s house.

Emmy checked her phone as she got out. Two more texts from her crazy aunt.

The cousins text had blown up again, but the potluck vs.

restaurant argument had reached a detente.

Taybee had created a spreadsheet that referred to a map overlaid with search areas she had assigned to various branches of Cliftons.

No one was questioning her authority. For once, they were all in complete agreement about what had to be done.

The last text was from her mother. Cole had finally nodded off in Emmy’s old bed. She let herself feel the relief of knowing her child was cared for. Emmy was about to return her phone to her pocket when it started to ring.

She answered on speakerphone so her father could hear. “Dylan, we’re both here. What do you have?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I know Cheyenne and Madison from seeing them in the halls, but they’ve never been in trouble with me.”

Emmy was disappointed but not surprised the two girls had managed to stay clear of the school’s law enforcement officer. They were demonstrably good at keeping secrets. “What about Jack Whitlock?”

“Dr. Carl’s son?” Dylan sounded slightly alarmed. His fourteen-year-old daughter was probably a patient. “Jack’s not in the popular group for sure. Kind of quiet. Kind of a loner. I’ve never had any one-on-one with him.”

Again, not surprising. A school resource officer’s job was safety and crime prevention.

Dylan’s days were filled with breaking up fights, tracking down petty thieves, and walking the hallways to remind the students there was a cop on duty—none of which would put him in direct contact with kids who knew how to stay out of trouble. Or at least give off the appearance.

She asked, “Who are the dealers at school?”

“Nobody,” Dylan said. “North Falls High does not have a drug problem.”

Emmy almost laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

Gerald cleared his throat. “Dylan, Emmy will meet you at the school first thing in the morning. Give her the rundown. She’ll need to talk to the guidance counselors, teachers, kids. Make a list.”

Like Virgil, he hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes, boss.”

Emmy ended the call. She asked her dad, “What was that?”

Gerald didn’t answer. He walked up the driveway toward Dr. Carl’s house. Emmy followed, trying to turn her brain away from the strange phone call and concentrate on the task at hand.

As of right now, Jack Whitlock was their only lead in the disappearance of Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple. The girls had been missing for over four hours. The odds that they would be found alive were dropping into the single digits.

Emmy let her gaze travel around the property.

The red brick ranch-style home with crisp white trim and a carport on the left-hand side was another Clifton family special, this one designed to take advantage of government-backed mortgages provided to returning World War II veterans who were eager to start their families.

Three bedrooms. En suite in the primary.

Hall bath. Living room. Kitchen. Den. No basement.

There was only one vehicle parked in the carport, Dr. Carl’s black Volkswagen Jetta.

The rest of the space was taken up by a long workbench and several metal storage cabinets.

Everything was tidy and in its place, unlike the yard, which had gone to hell since Monica had left.

The flower beds were mostly weeds. The grass looked parched.

No one had cleaned out the gutters in a good long while.

The bigger problem was that, unlike every other house on the street, the lights at Dr. Carl’s were turned off. Not even the porch light was on.

Gerald glanced back at Emmy. All the bad explanations passed wordlessly between them.

Torture. Rape. Murder. Patricide. Suicide.

Jack Whitlock was a sixteen-year-old white male who was unpopular at school and described as a quiet loner.

Emmy knew for a fact that Dr. Carl kept at least one weapon in the house.

She had seen him at the shooting range with a SIG MCX that had a sixteen-inch hammer forged barrel, a skeletonized side-folding stock, and a thirty-round magazine.

The nearly $3,000 rifle was billed as a home defense weapon, but the military styling had an ungodly appeal to weekend warriors, divorced fathers, and school shooters.

Emmy unsnapped the strap around her Glock for the second time that night.

Gerald walked up the two steps to the front porch.

He waited until Emmy was positioned behind him and to his right.

He raised his fist and gave the door three hard knocks.

Each one was loud enough to sound like a gunshot, which was by design.

You didn’t knock tentatively if you didn’t know what was waiting for you on the other side.

Emmy saw a light switch on in the far corner of the house. She knew it came from the primary bedroom. She silently counted off the steps to the front door. Up the long hallway. Through the living room. Turn left at the kitchen. Another short hallway. Then the foyer.