“From the day care.”
“Yes,” Rena said.
“I’ve been thinking about her 24/7,” Genevieve said.
“Why’s that?” Rena asked.
“I’m not sure,” Genevieve admitted. “I mean, it’s a horrible story. But it seems to have consumed me. Maybe because it happened so close to here.”
“Were you here on Wednesday morning? Around 7:15, 7:30?” A.L. asked.
“Not here,” she said, motioning to the space around them. “I don’t open until 10:00. But I would have been upstairs. In my apartment.”
“Convenient,” Rena said.
“The reason I rented this location,” Genevieve explained. “I like to have all my energy centered, not spread too thin.”
“Right,” A.L. said. “You didn’t happen to see Emma Whitman walk away from the day care?” he asked, knowing it was all but impossible. If she had, she’d no doubt have come forward right away.
“No. I slept until almost 9:00 that morning.”
“No unusual noises? No dogs barking?” Rena asked.
“Sometimes people hear things but they don’t realize the importance at the moment,” A.L. added.
Genevieve smiled. “I’m pretty attuned to any stimuli.”
“And you didn’t see or hear anything unusual?” Rena said.
Genevieve shook her head. “But I don’t think she walked away.”
A.L. stared at the woman. “Why do you say that?”
“I told you, it’s been consuming me. I see her in a car.”
“See?”
Her glasses had slipped down her nose and she deliberately pushed them up. “Yes. See.”
“Do you see anything else?” Rena asked quickly, probably afraid to let him speak.
“She’s not unhappy.”
No one said anything. For a very long minute.
“Uh...can you describe the car?” Rena asked.
Genevieve shook her head. “I’m not sure it’s even a car. But I think it’s a vehicle of some kind.”
“The driver?” Rena asked. “Male? Female?”
“I’m sorry. It’s always just her. Little Emma.”
“What was she wearing?” A.L. asked.
“I’ve read the description in the newspaper. I could recite that and maybe you’d believe me more or less. I don’t know. But I’m not seeing clothes. Just her sweet face with her brown hair blowing in the wind.”
“When did you first have this...uh...vision?” Rena asked.
“When I first woke up. It was at least an hour later that I heard what had happened at the day care.”
She looked directly at A.L. as she spoke the last sentence.
“And have you had any other visions?” A.L. asked, as if finally finding his voice.
Genevieve shook her head. “I’m sorry, no.”
“If anything comes up that might be helpful to us, we’d appreciate a call,” Rena said, handing the woman her card.
“I’ll do that. I hope you find her. I really do.”
“Have you ever met Leah or Troy Whitman, the child’s parents?” A.L. asked.
“Not that I’m aware. I suppose it’s possible. The day care will have a bake sale every couple of months to raise money for activities and I try to support them.”
“So you know Alice Quest and perhaps some of the staff?” A.L. asked.
Genevieve nodded.
“Got any feelings one way or another about them right now?” A.L. asked.
“As if whether or not they’re involved in Emma’s disappearance?” Genevieve clarified.
“Any feelings?” A.L. said, keeping it broad.
“I’m sorry. I don’t. All I can tell you is that I’m confident that it was Emma that I saw, her hair was blowing in the wind, and she didn’t seem scared or unhappy.”
“Thank you,” Rena said. She opened the door and motioned for A.L. to precede her out. When they were far enough from the door not to be heard, she turned to him. “I thought for a minute you were going to ask her to help with the investigation.”
It wasn’t unheard of. But definitely not generally his thing. But they were into the third day. This was excruciating. “If I’d thought she had more to offer, I would have,” he said.
“Not unhappy,” she repeated. “If we believe in this vision, that supports our theory that it wasn’t a stranger.”
“Agree,” A.L. said. “For what that gets us.”
“I really didn’t get the feeling that she’s a crackpot,” Rena said.
“You believe in psychics?” A.L. asked.
“I believe that there are people who are better connected to what’s going on around them than others. And that maybe they have the ability to feel things, hell, maybe even see things, that the rest of us can’t.”
“If, and this is a big if, she’s right, then Emma was in some kind of vehicle but not unhappy about it. Hair blowing in the wind,” A.L. said.
“Multiple people have looked at street camera video. Nobody has picked up a little girl being driven in a vehicle.”
“I know. We’re back to crackpot.”
Rena started heading back to their vehicle but he stopped her. “There’s one more thing we need to do now that we’re in this neighborhood.”
“What?”
“Remember Coyote Frogg? I asked Ferguson to try to find him. He would be twenty-nine years old. There’s no record of him being employed since 2017. Yet he never collected any federal or state assistance after that. And there’s been no electric bills, gas bills or telephone bills in his name since around the same time.”
“So he dropped off the grid.”
“We all know that’s almost impossible to really do. But he’s been pretty much a shadow. He did seek some medical treatment about six months ago in Milwaukee for a chemical burn. Told the doctor that he was a student and he’d been doing an experiment in his basement.”
“Cooking meth?” Rena asked knowingly.
“Good a guess as any. But we were able to get a recent photo out of his medical record and I had Ferguson scan it and send it to me. I want to show it to Mr. Gibacki at the Panini Playground.” He held out his phone and let Rena see the photo.