“What was the fucking plan, Kara? Where was she getting dropped off? What cornfield?” A.L. demanded.
“The cornfield that backs up to the learning center playground. Catherine was to get her started on a row and tell her to keep walking in a straight line. My job was to make sure somebody saw her when she emerged.”
A five-year-old was alone in a ready-to-harvest field, where the corn easily stretched a foot or more above her head. It would be very easy for her to get disoriented. To lose her way.
They’d pick up the sister later. She’d said she was heading home. Now the priority had to be finding Emma. He’d get another officer to babysit these two. “You stay here,” he said, looking at Kara and her lawyer. Then he focused solely on Kara. “You better hope we find Emma and that nothing bad has happened to her.”
Twenty-Four
He pushed back from the table and was out the door. Rena was on his heels. They ran to the parking lot and got in his SUV. Then he drove fast. While he did that, Rena was on the phone, giving updates, getting officers mobilized to search the immediate area of the learning center.
“Do Troy and Leah know?” A.L. asked when she finished.
“Yeah. They’re aware that 317 Brookline was searched and found empty and that Emma may be walking on her own. I suspect we’ll see them at the learning center.”
He didn’t want to have to look at them if they lost Emma at this point. He knew there was no guarantee that she was still in that field. Two minutes after Catherine had left her, she might have gotten scared and backtracked and could now be wandering anywhere.
Five minutes later, they pulled into the lot. There were six or seven other police cars already there. Somebody was handing out water bottles. “For Emma,” they said. “If she’s out for any length of time, she could be dehydrated.”
It was a hot September day. Close to ninety degrees. A.L. and Rena both took off their suit coats. He grabbed two water bottles—one for Emma and one for himself. He wasn’t coming out of that field until somebody found her. Rena did the same. And when one of the FBI agents pointed and said, “We need more bodies over here,” the two of them headed in that direction.
“Stay in one row. Look left and right as you go, to cover three rows at a time,” the agent instructed. He pointed for A.L. to start in one spot with Rena a few rows over.
It was hot. And the drying leaves of the corn stalks slapped them in their faces. The vegetation produced a dense cloying smell that made A.L. want to throw up. “Come on, Emma. Come on, honey,” he said. He walked at a fast pace but not so fast that he couldn’t carefully scan right and left. A curled up five-year-old could get very small. Within minutes he had sweat running down the back of his neck. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the end of the row. Rena was seconds behind him.
There was another FBI agent at that end. He pointed at two more rows and A.L. and Rena started a return route. They did it four more fucking times. By that point, they’d both emptied their water bottles and grabbed two more from one of the cases that somebody had left on the ground for just that purpose.
Nobody was stopping for more than a few seconds at the end of the row before plunging back into the dense field. A.L. spent the time mentally kicking his own ass. If they’d been a half hour earlier, maybe they’d have stopped Catherine before she’d left her house. If they’d have somehow ferreted out that Kara had a biological sister. If they’d have realized that Claire Potter wasn’t off in her suggestion that Kara and Steven had something going.
Should have. Would have. Could have. And now a five-year-old’s life hung in the balance.
He picked up the pace, almost jogging. His heart was beating noisily in his chest, reverberating in his ears. Maybe from exertion. Maybe from fear. That combined with the thrashing of other officers working their way through the field almost made him miss it.
But there it was.
“Help.”
A small voice.
And there she was. Dressed in the same outfit that had been described in a thousand posters and email posts. Sitting on the ground. Looking up. Streaks of dried tears on her dirty face.
He knelt down. “Emma, I’m a police officer. You’re safe. I’m going to take you back to your mom and dad.”
She said nothing. But she did look at the water bottle in his hand.
“Are you thirsty, honey? You want a drink?”
She nodded.
He twisted the lid off the water bottle and put it on the ground halfway between the two of them. She picked it up and took a big drink. She did not give it back to him.
He held out a hand. “Will you take my hand and let me lead you out of this field? Will you let me take you back to your mommy and your daddy?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice very faint. But when she stuck out her hand, it was steady. And she didn’t flinch when he gently engulfed it in his own.
And together, A.L. and Emma walked out of the cornfield.
* * *
It was many hours later, just before 5:00 in the afternoon, when normal people were just leaving their day jobs, that he finally crawled into bed. He’d been up for more than thirty-five hours but he wasn’t that sleepy. He suspected, though, that once the adrenaline wore off, he’d sleep like the dead.
Troy and Leah Whitman had been waiting together and had gathered Emma in their arms. After a long and tearful hug, Leah had stepped back, looked for her mother and motioned for her to step in. Then the four of them had held each other tight.
The little girl had been checked at the scene and then later transported to the hospital but had already been released. Physically, she was fine. Emotionally, time would tell, but the experts had said that she was likely going to be okay. While it had been a despicable act to take her, Emma had food and shelter and had not realized the peril she was in.
None of that mitigated law enforcement’s anger with Kara Wiese, Steven Hanzel and Catherine Wood, who’d been picked up at her house without incident. Catherine and Kara were being charged with kidnapping and other assorted lesser charges and Steven Hanzel as an accessory.
Troy and Leah had listened to the story with a stunned look on their faces. “I’m sorry, Leah,” Troy had said, his voice thick with tears. “This was my fault.”
After just a moment of hesitation, she’d reached for his hand. “No. Not your fault. Their fault. Three crazy people who thought it would be easy to fool a five-year-old.”
A.L. sort of thought the Whitmans might have a chance.
A.L. smiled at the woman next to him. Tess had hurried home from the title company when he’d finally been able to call her and tell her it was over. Now she was naked in his arms.