“For over two years,” Alice said.
“What’s her home address?” A.L. asked.
Now Alice tapped on the keyboard on her desk. Then she picked up a pen and scribbled something on a notepad. Tore off the sheet. “Here. But you won’t find her there.”
“Why not?” A.L. asked.
“Because she called me less than ten minutes ago. Said she was going to come join the search.”
“She’s suddenly feeling better?” A.L. asked.
Alice shrugged. “I didn’t grill her on her health.”
Alice already sounded tired. And discouraged. A.L. thought she should buck up. Things could get much worse before they got better. “Would you call her on her cell?” he asked. “Tell her to come inside the building.”
Alice picked up the cell phone on her desk. Scrolled through her contacts. “Hey, Olivia. Are you here at Lakeside?” Alice listened. “Could you do me a favor and come to the front door. I’ll meet you there and let you in. There are a couple officers who’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Alice listened and then put down her phone. “She’ll be right here. I really hate that my staff are going to get treated like common criminals.”
“We’re just asking questions,” Rena said, her voice kind. “We’re not making any assumptions.”
“I know,” Alice said. “But I really think you need to be looking elsewhere.”
They were. A.L. already had someone pulling the list of all known sexual predators in the area. Every one of them would receive a visit from an officer. Emma’s disappearance was basically all anybody would be working on.
It took Olivia Blow less than two minutes to knock on the front door. Alice and A.L. went to answer it. Olivia was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes. She had a small backpack over her left shoulder. She looked to be early thirties. Her hair was a short wavy medium brown and she had big dark brown eyes. Attractive. Looked healthy enough.
“I’m Detective McKittridge with the Baywood Police Department,” he said.
She stuck out her hand and he returned the shake. Rena had joined them in the hallway. “This is my partner, Detective Morgan,” A.L. said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course,” she said, not sounding too concerned.
“We can use Classroom 1,” he said. He didn’t intend to do this in front of Alice.
Rena led the way, Olivia went next, and he brought up the rear. Alice retreated to her office. Once the three of them were inside, both he and Rena pulled out their notebooks.
“May I call you Olivia?” A.L. asked.
“Of course.”
“You’ve been working at the day care full-time for more than two years. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you work before that?”
“I was in college. A late bloomer you might say. Didn’t go anywhere right after high school. But after ten years of waitressing, I’d had enough. I wanted to work with kids.”
“No children of your own?” Rena asked.
“No. Hopefully someday. I haven’t met Mr. Right yet. I’m just thirty-two so I have a few years.”
“Of course,” Rena said.
A.L. knew that Rena could tell Olivia a thing or two about waiting and babies. Rena hadn’t gotten married until she was thirty-six. They’d tried right away, but it was more than two years later and even though there’d been some gymnastics with an infertility specialist, still no pregnancy.
“Alice tells us you’ve had a great work record here,” A.L. said. “Never missed a day of work until today. But it appears as if you’re feeling better.”
“Better,” she said. “Not great. But I slept most of the day so that was helpful since I was up most of the night. When I heard the news about Emma I couldn’t not join the search efforts. We have to find that little girl.”
“Anybody else home at your house today?” A.L. asked.
She shook her head.
“Anybody else able to verify that you were at your home today?” A.L. phrased the question just a bit differently.
She stared at him. “Why would that be necessary?” Her voice had cooled. She was starting to get the picture.
Rena leaned forward. “Olivia, you have to admit that it is interesting that you’ve never missed a day. Suddenly, on the day that Emma Whitman goes missing, you’re sick.”
“It’s not that interesting. I actually got sick the day before. I ate my afternoon snack and within a half hour, I was sick. My stomach hurt.” She paused. “I had really bad diarrhea, if you must know. That continued well into the evening and wasn’t showing signs of improvement. That’s when I sent Alice the text. I wanted to give her as much notice as possible. When I woke up this morning, I knew I’d made the right decision. I was exhausted and no doubt dehydrated. Not to get too graphic.”
“We’d like to have an officer search your house and your vehicle. Would you agree to that?” Rena asked.
“Whatever. It won’t take long. I live in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment and I drive a Prius.”
“Is this your address?” Rena asked, showing her what Alice had written down.
“Yes. Somebody can look at my car here. And then I can meet them at my apartment.”
A.L. stood up. “That’ll be fine. If you’ll wait outside the front door, I’ll have an officer take care of that.”
He and Rena walked Olivia to the door. She was pushing it open when she turned. “I get why you need to search my car and my house. I do. And I guess I’m glad that you’re being thorough. But just tell me one thing. Do you think that we’re going to find her? That she’s going to be okay?” Her voice broke.
“I don’t know,” A.L. said. It was the best he could do. “The weather is working in our favor. Not too cold at night.”
“That’s if she wandered off. Do you think that’s what happened?”
“Do you?” he countered.
She shrugged. “On the drive here, I went over it a hundred times in my head. Five-year-olds are pretty responsible and she would have known not to leave the day care.”
A.L. said nothing. He’d had the very same thoughts. He quite clearly remembered Traci at that age. She’d been able to follow directions and certainly knew about stranger-danger.
“There’s a lot of people out there,” Olivia said. “Searching. Maybe that gives the Whitmans some comfort. Knowing that people care.”