She handed it to him. He entered both his and Rena’s numbers. “Now you’ll know that it’s one of us calling.” He paused. “If Emma has been taken, and we don’t know that, but if, we’re going to want to monitor both your and Troy’s phones. Is that okay?” He could make it happen one way or another but again, always easier when a person simply agreed. “That way, if a call comes in that is in any way related to Emma’s disappearance, we’ll have another set of ears and the technology to hone onto anything that might be helpful to us.”

“Like?” Leah asked.

“Speech. Regional dialect. Background noises that might give us a clue to where Emma is. And we’d be able to immediately start to identify the location where the call originated.”

“Can you let Troy know?” Leah said dully.

“Of course,” Rena said. “We know this is tough. But we’re going to do everything we possibly can to find her. I promise.”

Troy walked back. “Well, they know,” he said. “They were going to jump in the car but I told them to wait...until we knew more.”

“What are your parents’ names?” A.L. asked.

“Perry and LuAnn Whitman.”

“Address and telephone number?”

Troy hesitated but then rattled off an address as well as a cell number for his dad, then his mom. “Are you going to call them?” he asked.

A.L. shrugged. “I’m not sure at this point. You have a good relationship with your parents?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Both of you?” he asked, looking at Leah.

“Perry and LuAnn are lovely people,” she said.

“They’d say the same about you?” A.L. asked.

“I think they would,” Leah said.

“Brother’s name and number?” A.L. asked.

“This seems like a waste of time,” Troy said. But, nevertheless, he pulled up the contact information for a Travis Whitman. It was a different address than the parents. A.L. copied everything down.

“Married? Children?” A.L. asked.

“Divorced. More than ten years now. No children. His ex is remarried with two kids and lives in Montana. And before you ask, there are no issues between us and Travis.”

“Great, thanks,” A.L. said. “Now let’s talk about your cell phone.”

When A.L. filled him in on the details, Troy raised an eyebrow. Not unexpected. Who would like the idea of somebody listening to all his or her private cell phone calls? He said nothing, however, until A.L. was finished. Then he asked, “When will that start?”

“As soon as we can make a few phone calls,” A.L. said.

“Fine. Do whatever you need to do.”

A.L. entered his number and Rena’s into Troy’s cell. Just as he finished, Rena’s cell phone buzzed.