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“Deputy Alvarez.” Celia had the radio to her mouth. “Keep all staff and students out of the Arts Pod, please.”

A burst of static preceded Dylan’s answer. “Yes ma’am.”

Emmy paged through the health textbook before placing it on the floor, then she put the paper bag on top.

Only one other item remained in the locker.

Again, she used her phone to document a white mailing envelope.

The return address showed a C-shaped gear with a lightning bolt cutting through the middle.

Emmy recognized the logo for the Clifton Tool and Die Company. It was the de facto family crest.

Celia asked, “Cheyenne’s father works at the factory, right?”

“Felix Baker. He’s an engineer.”

Emmy opened the envelope. There was another photo, this one showing Cheyenne fully nude. On the bare mattress. On her back. Legs splayed. Arms out. Mouth open.

“Dear God,” Celia said. “What were they mixed up in?”

Emmy put the photograph back in the locker face-down. She didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to know all the things that Cheyenne Baker had lost in that single moment when the camera had captured the image.

She told Celia, “Cheyenne was taking money for sex.”

“Dammit.” Celia sounded disgusted, but more with herself than the girl. “I had no idea. Was she doing it in school?”

“I don’t know. I need copies of all the CCTV footage from the last month.”

“The cameras only cover doors and hallways. She could go into one of the empty classrooms. Bathrooms. Changing rooms. Not that she’d have to. Everyone knows that the system is glitchy.” Celia pointed up at the camera behind Emmy. “We just got that one back online last week.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Emmy doubted it, but she would go through the footage anyway. “Have you heard any of the kids talk about someone they call the Perv?”

“That’s a bit on the nose,” Celia said. “But no, I haven’t heard of him. Is he your suspect?”

“Could be,” Emmy said, but she was questioning Jack’s reliability. “Where’s Madison’s locker?”

“Down here.”

Emmy waited while Celia slipped the key into the lock.

She held her breath, bracing for the horrors they might find.

The door swung open, but there wasn’t anything as dramatic as Cheyenne’s.

No photographs. No textbook. No brown paper bag.

In fact, the locker was empty but for a SIM card that had been cut into three pieces.

“Those little shits,” Celia muttered. “I confiscated Cheyenne’s phone last week. Madison must’ve stolen the SIM card.”

Emmy immediately recalled the conversation about Cheyenne’s burner phones. One of the numbers had gone offline nine days ago and a new number had replaced it. “Where’s the phone?”

“If I’ve still got it, it’ll be in here.

” Celia motioned her down the hall. “Two days after I took Cheyenne’s phone, Madison came to my office asking for a tampon.

I told her to go to the nurse, but she said she was too embarrassed.

I can’t believe I fell for it. I left her alone in my office. She must’ve stolen the SIM card then.”

“You’re sure it was two days later?”

“Absolutely. We had a fire drill that morning. Madison was standing outside my door when I came back from the football field.”

“Was your office locked during the fire drill?”

“Yes, but I unlocked it so she could wait inside. I told you she was sneaky.”

Emmy was more interested in the logistics. Why not take the phone? Why only steal the SIM card? And why destroy it?

If they were right about Madison’s phone logs, Cheyenne had replaced the confiscated burner with a new one the same day.

Then two days had passed before Madison had stolen the SIM card.

Cheyenne clearly didn’t need a phone at that point.

Who had told them to get the SIM card back?

And why hold onto the plastic pieces, when cutting it up destroyed whatever data was stored on the card?

Maybe they were supposed to show it to somebody in order to prove that it had been destroyed. Maybe the kidnapper had sent Madison to steal it.

Celia walked through the counseling center to her office in the back. Her desk was piled with neat stacks of papers. There were two framed photos: one of Emmy holding Cole and one of Tommy playing the banjo. It was an old photo. He still had most of his hair.

Emmy scanned the bank of monitors above the filing cabinets across from the desk.

They showed the empty hallways, the auditorium entrance, the doors into the back of the building.

Dylan had done his job keeping out the kids.

The only thing that looked out of place were the contents of Cheyenne’s locker that were still laid out on the floor.

Emmy thought about the photos inside. Madison had turned fifteen only yesterday. Her body was less woman than child.

“Here you go.” Celia grabbed a cardboard box off one of the filing cabinets and plopped it down on her desk.

Emmy felt her heart sink. There were at least a dozen phones. “Do you remember what brand Cheyenne was caught with?”

“They all blend together after a while. Phones are my white whale.” Celia handed her a clipboard that had a list of names and dates.

“I make the kids sign them in, so I don’t have to touch the screens.

God knows I don’t need to get pink eye. The rule is, if you use it in class, I keep it for four school days.

If that’s over a weekend or a holiday, sorry about your luck. ”

Emmy looked at the long list of scribbled names. There were no checks or Xs to indicate when the phones were returned to students. “How do you know if a kid gets their phone back?”

“They’re scratching at my door by the fourth day. Phones aren’t cheap.”

“Would you notice if one was missing from the box?”

“No,” Celia said. “But they wouldn’t know that. Ninety-nine percent of my job is making kids believe I’ve got the time and the wherewithal to outsmart them.”

Emmy guessed that was why Madison stole the SIM and left the phone. She found Cheyenne’s name on the list. “Cheyenne signed her phone in on Tuesday of last week. Do you remember her asking for it on Monday?”

Celia’s brow furrowed in thought. “I honestly can’t remember.”

Emmy still had her gloves on. She rummaged through the box.

Flip phones mingled with iPhones and Androids and a chunky Samsung.

All of them were powered off. There was every kind of case.

Some of them had sports mascots or rainbows.

A lot of them had cats. None of the flip phones had initials carved into the plastic.

Emmy was resigning herself to going through them one by one when she spotted a very distinctive shade of blue on an iPhone case.

The same blue as Cheyenne’s bike. The same blue as her bedroom sheets.

Emmy asked, “Do you have a paper clip?”

Celia pulled one from a stack of papers. She didn’t have to be asked to twist it around so that the pointy end was sticking out. Emmy slid the paper clip into the tiny hole on the side of the iPhone. The SIM card slot popped open. The tray was empty.

“That’s weird,” Celia said. “What’s he doing here?”

Emmy turned around. Celia was looking at one of the monitors.

Dale Loudermilk was in the hallway. He looked exactly like what he was: a forty-something-year-old high school chorus teacher who was married to a church secretary.

Thick glasses. Push broom mustache. Ned Flanders haircut.

Ron Swanson body. He was dressed in the green shirt and tan cargo shorts uniform of the North Falls Recreation Center.

He had stopped in front of Cheyenne’s locker, probably wondering why all of her stuff was on the floor.

The truth must’ve hit him, if only because of the suggestive photos taped to the back.

Instead of walking away, he looked left, then right, then he reached inside.

He picked up the photograph that Emmy had left face-down in the locker.

She expected him to be repulsed, to immediately return it to its place, to feel sick and disgusted, to do anything but what he actually did.

He stared at the lewd photo of Cheyenne splayed on the mattress.

His expression was completely passive. Emmy stepped closer to the monitor, studied his bland features, the casual way he was looking at a piece of child pornography as if it were a bus schedule.

She found herself counting off the seconds.

She got to ten, then twenty. She had almost reached thirty seconds when Loudermilk finally returned the photo to the locker and walked away.

Emmy told Celia, “Radio Dylan. Tell him to get down here now.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She jogged back through the counseling center. Her skin felt like it was on fire. The tickle. The bad feeling. None of what Dale Loudermilk had done felt right.

Instead of running into the hallway to confront him, she peered around the edge of the door.

Loudermilk was walking away from her, heading toward the auditorium.

His hands were in his shorts pockets. His head stayed straight.

His pace was quick. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the auditorium doors.

He turned his head left, then right, then went inside.

Emmy held down the equipment on her belt as she jogged after him.

She paused outside the doors in order to keep her distance.

She entered the lobby. Went into the dark auditorium.

Gently closed the door. The exit signs acted as nightlights.

She saw Loudermilk, hands still in his pockets, walking down the center aisle.

Emmy hung back. She waited until he had disappeared into the wings to follow him across the stage.

She clenched her teeth when the soles of her heavy boots squeaked on the black floor.

He didn’t seem to hear. He was too focused on moving forward.

Emmy passed dressing rooms and bathrooms. She paused, waiting until he took a left down a narrow hallway.

No lights came on. No doors opened or closed.

She peered around the corner. Loudermilk was walking toward the end of the hall.

The exit sign glowed ahead of him. His hands were out of his pockets.

She could tell that he was holding something small that fit neatly into the palm of his hand.

Instead of taking the exit, he turned sharply into the stage manager’s office.

Emmy kept to the shadows, inching down the hall, until she could position herself to see through the glass window into the office.

Loudermilk was reaching behind a filing cabinet.

He pulled out a laptop. He sat down at the desk, opened the computer, and slid a thumb drive into the side.

Immediately, he started clicking and dragging his fingers across the trackpad.

The light of the screen reflected into his glasses.

In the silence, she heard the hard drive spinning, the fans waking up.

He was copying files onto the thumb drive.

Emmy knocked on the glass.

“Jesus!” Loudermilk slammed the laptop closed as he jumped up from the desk. “What do you want?”

Emmy walked into the small office. She turned on the overhead lights. “What files were you copying?”

“I—” His eyes went to the laptop, then back at her. “Song sheets. Show choir auditions are next week. I need to prepare.”

“Auditions aren’t until the end of the month.”

“I meant—I have to get ready next week. For the auditions that are coming up. It takes preparation.” His eyes flicked toward the window.

Celia had followed them. He straightened his shoulders, trying to assert some authority.

“Dr. Clifton, could you explain to this young woman that I have work to do?”

Celia told Emmy, “That computer belongs to the school. I have admin authority.”

Emmy nodded for Celia to give it a try.

“You can’t—” Loudermilk reached for the laptop, but Emmy blocked his way.

She asked, “Why did you hide your laptop behind the filing cabinet?”

“It wasn’t hidden. I stored it there to keep it safe over the summer, but—” His eyes shifted as he desperately searched for an explanation. “Anyone could access it. I haven’t been here since post-planning. Any one of the janitors could’ve—”

“Could’ve what?” Emmy crowded into his space. “What files were you copying?”

“N-nothing, I—” Loudermilk’s hand went to his mouth. “Please, this is a misunderstanding. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m a good man.”

“I’m in,” Celia said.

Emmy leaned down to look at the laptop. A progress bar showed on the middle of the screen.

Nine hundred and sixty-eight files were being copied.

Emmy opened the thumb drive, which was titled SHEET MUSIC.

There were more folders than she could count.

HYMNS. ORATORIOS. MAGNIFICATS. CANTATAS. PSALMS. CHRISTMAS.

“See?” Loudermilk pointed to the files. “I told you that I needed to print out some song sheets for—”

“Shut up.” Emmy toggled the dates to show the most recent folder. Sacred Concertos jumped to the top of the list. The contents must have been massive. The progress bar estimated the task would take forty-eight minutes.

She moved the cursor to the folder.

“Please don’t,” Loudermilk begged. “Just walk away. We can all just walk away.”

Emmy tapped open Sacred Concertos. It was like a Russian doll. More folders appeared, one for almost every letter of the alphabet. She started with the As. Thumbnails loaded for dozens of JPEGs. All of the file names followed the same pattern: a name, a dash, a number.

Abigail-10

Allyson-10

Andie-11

Angela-10

Anna-9

Emmy tasted bile in her mouth. She opened the B folder. Then the C. They were all the same. Alphabetized. Indexed. A name. A dash. A number. She didn’t open any of the photos. The thumbnails alone were nauseating.

“I can explain,” Loudermilk tried.

Emmy didn’t need an explanation.

Dale Loudermilk was a pedophile with easy access to both of the missing girls.