Page 63 of We Are All Guilty Here

She asked, “Did you call the hospital? Emergency clinics?”

“Me and the mom called everybody. We got nothing.”

“Okay.” Emmy’s hands were already sweating when she took out her phone. She talked as she texted. “I’m sending backup to secure the scene. Patrol will retrace the route she took on her bike. I want you to talk to the mom. We need Paisley’s description. Find out what she was wearing. Ask for a recent photo. Text everything to me.”

“Yes, chief.”

“Wait,” Emmy stopped him from ending the call. Her mind was furiously trying to come up with explanations other thanthe bad one. In nearly half of all missing children’s cases, a parent was responsible. “Keep an eye on the mom and dad to see if either of them is acting strange. Try to get an idea about the marriage. Get permission to search the house top to bottom. Look inside the cars, too. Make sure Paisley’s not hiding somewhere.”

“Chief.” Brett hesitated. “I don’t think she’s hiding.”

Emmy didn’t think she was either, but they had to consider everything. Like the fact that in twenty-seven percent of all missing children’s cases, a relative or acquaintance was responsible.

She said, “Get the parents to call relatives, friends, anybody Paisley has a relationship with, no matter how loose. Same with the middle school. Counselors, teachers, aides—ask about any electives she’s in—yearbook, chorus, whatever. She was doing that class project for somebody.”

“Okay, chief. What else?”

Emmy felt her stomach twist tightly. Thewhat elsewas the worst possibility. A stranger. A predatory kidnapper who had randomly seen a child and decided to take her.

She said, “Look around the neighborhood. Are any houses being remodeled or under construction? Is there a neighbor with a babysitter or visiting relative or friend? A new substitute teacher or maintenance worker at school? We need to be talking to everybody, Brett. I want all hands on deck. Nobody sleeps until we find Paisley.”

“Yes, chief. Backup just got here. Anything else?”

“Go.”

Gerald hung up the phone. He grabbed his jacket off the chair. Emmy squeezed Tommy’s shoulder as she left the office with her father, ping-ponging from one tragedy to another.

Paisley Walker. Fourteen years old. Riding her bike on the backroads. Was there another child, a second victim? Was the pattern repeating? Had the girl been taken to a secluded location where she would be raped and tortured, the bones of her hands and feet shattered so that she couldn’t fight, couldn’t run away?

“Mom!” Cole ran out of the house with their duty vests. “I just heard—”

“Get in the car.”

The sun was blinding as she crossed the yard. Emmy could hear her father struggling to keep pace. Her eyes started to water. She felt as if she was going to vomit. This couldn’t be happening again. Not with Adam out of prison. Not with her mother spiraling, her father fading away, her life falling apart. She felt shaky and sick as she opened the door to her cruiser. Cole jumped into the back. Emmy wanted to slow things down, to take a second to catch her breath, to keep her mind from racing to all the bad places, but there wasn’t time.

Gerald flipped open his phone as Emmy sped up the driveway. She watched him dial the number for the GBI. Time was of the essence. They needed to cue up a Levi’s Call, Georgia’s equivalent of an Amber Alert.

She told him, “Sylvia Wrigley got thousands of followers after she was interviewed for Jack’s podcast.”

“Yep.”

Emmy slipped her phone out of her pocket. There were half a dozen notifications from theHerald. She swiped them away, then pulled up the private WhatsApp group of female law enforcement officers in the area. She typed with her thumb—

Poss abduction 14yo girl details incoming BOLO

“Mom,” Cole said. “Where are you going?”

Emmy had bypassed the road to the station. “Adam Huntsinger’s house.”

“But—” Cole grabbed the metal partition to hold on. “If Adam kidnapped this girl, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to take her to his house.”

“Put your seat belt on,” Emmy ordered. “I know Adam’s not that stupid, but other people are.”

She took another sharp turn, slinging Cole to the opposite side of the car. He finally put on his seat belt when she reached the interstate. Emmy looked at her watch, doing the math. Millie’s part of the backroads was a ten-minute bike ride from Coleman Avenue. Sylvia would’ve called in the bike as soon as she saw the blood, then Brett would’ve rushed to the scene, then he’d called the parents, then the school and hospitals, then finally Gerald.

That gave them a fifty-minute window during which something bad could’ve happened to Paisley Walker. Emmy let her mind carousel through all the possibilities one more time. A parent. A family member. An acquaintance. A stranger.

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.

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