Page 26 of Graveyard Dog

“Emma,” Michael said, climbing in to sit across from them. “Are you okay, Squirt?”

Izzy put her ear to Emma’s chest. “She seems to be breathing okay.”

“That’s good.”

“Michael?” Emma blinked and gazed up, first at him and then at her mother, as though surprised to see them. “Mommy? What are you doing in an ambulance?”

Izzy laughed through a sob and gently took Emma into her arms. “Sweetheart, what happened? Are you hurt?”

An older officer walked up, his face displaying his experience through the lines and imperfections of aging. “She apparently jumped out of a moving vehicle and ran up to one of the women watching the fire.”

“What?” Izzy said, gaping at Emma.

“According to the EMT, that blood isn’t hers. Any thoughts on whose it might be?” he asked.

Michael had a good idea. The nurse’s. This would traumatize Emma for the rest of her life. Poor thing.

But Izzy was more concerned about how Emma got there. “You jumped?”

Still slightly out of it, she turned to her mother. “Celie told me to open the door and jump when he turned his head, so I did.” She looked at the palms of her hands, and a fat tear slid down her cheek. “But I fell and scraped my hands on the rocks.”

“Was Celie driving the vehicle?” the officer asked.

“I’ll take it from here, Officer,” Carson said, coming to the rescue yet again. She flashed her badge, and, unlike in the movies, he didn’t seem to care.

He just nodded and walked off to talk to one of the firefighters.

Another agent showed up, a young kid who looked like he’d just graduated with honors from Santa Fe Middle School. Carson sent him to question the woman who’d helped Emma and get a description of the man if she’d seen him.

“So, the fire has nothing to do with Emma’s abduction?” Izzy asked Carson.

“From what I’ve picked up, this fire has been burning for almost two hours. They’re just trying to keep it from spreading at this point. It’s a total loss. But this amazing young woman,” Carson said, beaming at Emma, “used the distraction to make her getaway.”

The scraped palms all but forgotten, Emma smiled. “Celie told me to. She said with all the cops around, he wouldn’t be able to grab me again. And if he tried, I should scream as loud as I could. But he didn’t even try, Mommy. He just stared at me for like ever and then speeded off down the street.”

Carson turned to Michael. “Is Celie special, too?”

“Very special. And very old.”

“Yourfaceis old,” Emma said. When everyone gaped at her, she explained. “Oh, that was from Celie. Not me. I don’t think your face is that old.”

“Okay, then,” Carson said, fighting a grin. “How about you fill me in on everything that’s happened today while the EMT checks out…your daughter, is it?”

Michael lifted an unapologetic shoulder. “I figured it would get me past the velvet ropes faster.”

“That’s one way of describing crime scene tape.”

He followed Carson a few feet away and spent the next twenty minutes explaining everything—well, almost everything—that had happened that day, including Emma’s severe allergic reaction.

“You think it was planned to get them to the hospital?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t there easier ways to abduct a kid? It seems like a lot of work.”

“Do you think he honestly wanted to harm her?”

“I don’t know that either. Izzy is convinced her ex is behind this, but he supposedly doesn’t even know about Emma.”

“Is she his?”

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