“But what other choices do we have?” asked a man sitting near the end of Lucy’s row. “My God, we can’t…we can’t watch over them every second of every day, no matter how much we want to.”

“I know,” said Emerson, his voice full of sympathy. “And no one with the common sense God gave an ice cube would expect you to watch over them twenty-four-seven, it just isn’t humanly possible. So you find people you can trust—an older sibling, a friend you’ve known for ten years, a neighbor with children of their own—and you make them part of your child’s social circle. Teachers, the person who drives their school bus…you’d be surprised, if you take the time to sit down and make a list, at just how many people there are in your world that can be trusted with sharing in your child’s welfare. The trick is not to give your grief and fear the upper hand. And one way of making sure that doesn’t happen is to instill caution and knowledge in your child and not resort to scare tactics.”

A middle-aged woman near the front raised her hand. “But that doesn’t make sense, Detective. Most of the cases you hear about…I mean, it seems like most of the cases you hear about, it involves someone the family thought they could trust, just like you said. How…how’s a person supposed to know that they aren’t asking some pervert to help watch over their child?”

Several people in the room mumbled their agreement.

Emerson rubbed at his temple, looked through his prepared notes, then sighed. “I don’t know,” he said, looking back up at the room. “I wish there was something in all this material to answer that question, but there isn’t. You see all these horrified, shocked faces on the news afterward—faces of mothers who thought their nephew was a good kid, so it was okay to leave little Jenny in his care for a few hours, faces of parents who can’t understand why their older daughter would do such a thing to her newborn brother, families looking on as aunts or uncles or the school-bus driver who everyone thought was a wonderful person is hauled off in cuffs while a sheet-covered body is brought up from the basement…I don’t know. I’d go back and say, ‘Trust your instincts,’ but, then, how many people trusted their instincts only to have their child taken from them as yours were from you?”

“You don’t have to be so apologetic,” said another man in the room. “Hell, it’s nice to hear someone in law enforcement admit that they don’t know the answer to something. I got so goddamned sick and tired of the police and FBI always having a quick response to every question me or my wife had, and every last answer said the same thing, more or less—‘We got it under control and you’ll have your child back with you soon.’ I mean, they never said that directly, but every answer they gave us had that…that undercurrent to it, you know?”