Page 11 of We Are All Guilty Here

CHAPTER THREE

Emmy sat in the passenger seat of her cruiser as her father sped down the road. They were on the way to deliver Cheyenne Baker’s parents the worst news they had ever heard in their lives. Their vulnerable fifteen-year-old daughter and her best friend were missing. Their bikes had been found abandoned. A phone had been deliberately destroyed. There was blood at the scene—not just a spot or two, but a pool of blood that had soaked the ground. This wasn’t a trick the girls were playing, or even an accident. The sheer volume of blood changed everything. It told them that whoever had taken the girls was not afraid of hurting them.

It was only a matter of time before their kidnapper hurt them even more.

Emmy was painfully aware of the clock they were running up against. At Mercer, she had written her graduate thesis on the steady increase of child kidnappings in the United States. She could recite the statistics in her sleep.

In nearly half of missing children cases, a parent or family member is the perpetrator. The victim is usually under the age of six. Typically, there is a bitter divorce or custody dispute involved, but there is sometimes a sexual assault component.

Cheyenne and Madison were teenagers. Both sets of parents were still married. And it didn’t make sense that a family member of one girl would kidnap them both.

Twenty-seven percent of cases are acquaintance abductions, and in most instances involve a juvenile offender. The victims tend to be teenage females. The motivation is almost always sexual assault and often involves a component of physical assault.

But as with a family member, an acquaintance would have much better opportunities to kidnap two girls than hoping they both showed up in the middle of a freshly planted soccer pitch with half of North Falls sitting 300 yards away.

That left a random stranger. Someone looking to take a child. Someone seeing two young girls isolated and alone. Someone who couldn’t control himself.

Fewer than one percent of child abductions were committed by predatory kidnappers. The victims tended to be almost exclusively females with the aggregate age of fourteen. They were more likely to be taken in an outdoor setting and to be coerced with a firearm. The kidnapper was more often than not driving a car. In forty-four percent of cases, the victim is murdered within the first hour. Seventy-eight percent die within the first three hours. Within twenty-four hours, virtually all of the victims are dead.

Emmy noted the time on her watch—10:58 p.m. They had officially been searching for the girls for less than an hour. She had last seen Madison standing in front of the bleachers at approximately 8:50. Hugo had slammed into her bicycle around 10:15. That gave the kidnapper a head start of at least eighty-five minutes.

Eighty-five minutes to terrify.

Eighty-five minutes to torture.

Eighty-five minutes to kill.

Emmy told herself that they were searching for the living. That Madison and Cheyenne were going to beat the odds, but with every passing second, she felt her hope slipping away.

Gerald coasted through a stop sign as he turned into the Verona Heights neighborhood. He dialed a new number into his flip phone, held it tight to his ear. He knew the odds just as well as Emmy. He had already spoken to the special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s south-west region. He’d requested a forensics team to process the bicycles and the soccer field. He’d called in the four Clifton reserve deputies to join the others in a search. The Highway Patrol was scouring every street, highway and interstate from here to Alabama. The Verona, Ocmulgee and Clayville police chiefs had all sent officers. Half of North Falls had volunteered for search parties. Hannah andPaul were driving every possible route back to their house. Hannah’s aunt Barb was watching Davey so they could stay out all night if needed. Hannah had called Emmy once, almost incapable of speaking. She was panicked, terrified, heartsick.

So was Emmy.

Madison had been only seven years old when her mother had died from cervical cancer. Hannah had been the girl’s much-loved first-grade teacher. She had gladly stepped up when Paul’s life had fallen apart—first by helping Madison with homework and packing extra snacks, then by letting her sleep over, then picking out her clothes for school, then taking her to movies and birthday parties and playdates, then eventually falling head over heels for Madison’s father.

It should’ve been a Hallmark movie, but almost as soon as Hannah and Paul had started dating, Madison had turned into a seething, sullen nightmare. The marriage had only made things worse. They’d tried family therapy. They’d tried father–daughter days. They’d tried bribing Madison with the new bike and clothes she didn’t need and an iPhone that was far too expensive for a fifteen-year-old girl. The same phone that had been found near a pool of blood.

The fireworks display would’ve covered any loud noises.

A scream. A cry for help. A gunshot.

Emmy clenched her hands to stop the trembling. She was sick with worry, filled with absolute terror for what the girls were going through, and frantic to turn back the clock. She pressed her fist to her mouth as she turned to look out the side window. She kept seeing the image of Madison waiting for her in front of the bleachers. Sweaty and irritable. Clearly wanting Emmy to hurry up. Her forehead wrinkled with concern. Her lips pursed in anticipation. Finally, blessedly, ready to talk.

Not now.

What had Emmy been thinking? You didn’t tell a troubled teenage girlnot now. You worked on their timeline. You stopped what you were doing. Especially if that frightened teenager was basically your best friend’s daughter. Any other friend would’ve listened. Any other mother would’ve known.

“Yep,” Gerald said into the phone. “Understood.”

Emmy heard the clamshell clap shut. The car slowed. Up ahead, she could see a dark brown sheriff’s cruiser already parked in front of the Bakers’ split-level home. No one was behind the wheel, but she recognized Chief Deputy Virgil Ingram’s ride.

Gerald nosed into the curb and put the gear in park. “House is empty. Neighbor on the right reports the family left in their minivan around three. Half an hour later, Cheyenne left on her bike. Family drove toward the river. She went toward town. Virgil’s tracking down the father’s cell phone number.”

Emmy nodded. Virgil was one rung below her father. She was glad he was here to take her place. She couldn’t face Cheyenne’s parents.

She told him, “Radio someone to pick me up. I can help with the search.”

“Nope,” Gerald said. “Talk it out.”

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