“That’s still helpful. Thanks.” Emilia was a less common name than Alex. If they were siblings, maybe Lindsay could find the sister, and maybe she’d recognize an old photograph of Hope. A lot of ifs and maybes, but it was better than nothing. “I’ve got an even trickier request. There’s a girl I went to high school with who was super close to Mrs. Jones, but no one can remember her name, and we don’t want to ruin the surprise by asking Mrs. Jones directly. Her children found a photograph of her—that’s how close they are—and a bunch of us are just trying to place a name to the face. Any chance I can send the picture to you to see if any of the long-term staff remembers her?”

“From back then? Oh, bless your heart, no. I’ve been here . . . ten, eleven years? And I’m the old-timer of the staff. Some of the cops volunteer year after year, but they’d all be long retired by now.”

Lindsay had known it was a long shot that someone from the camp might recognize Hope. “So, wow, you’ve worked there a while though. Nothing to do with Mrs. Jones, but I heard some pretty dark rumors a few years ago about bad stuff that may have happened to some of the kids at the camp. Abuse, from what I heard. But I never saw even a hint of that, to be clear. The cops were such great role models, and we had so much fun. Sometimes I wonder if people just make stuff up years later to get attention. Did you ever hear whispers about anything like that?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and when Smoky Voice spoke again, she sounded less friendly: “What did you say your name was again?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so long. Thanks for your help!”

The first hit for Emilia Lopez in Wichita, Kansas, was a LinkedIn profile for a paralegal at the Immigrant Community Legal Office. According to her resume, she’d earned a BA from Wichita State University only four years earlier, but graduated from Southeast High fifteen years before that, making her roughly thirty-seven years old. Lindsay thought she could see a resemblance to Alex Lopez through the eyes and forehead.