Alice picked up the cell phone on her desk. Scrolled through her contacts. “Hey, Olivia. Are you here at Lakeside?” Alice listened. “Could you do me a favor and come to the front door. I’ll meet you there and let you in. There are a couple officers who’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Alice listened and then put down her phone. “She’ll be right here. I really hate that my staff are going to get treated like common criminals.”

“We’re just asking questions,” Rena said, her voice kind. “We’re not making any assumptions.”

“I know,” Alice said. “But I really think you need to be looking elsewhere.”

They were. A.L. already had someone pulling the list of all known sexual predators in the area. Every one of them would receive a visit from an officer. Emma’s disappearance was basically all anybody would be working on.

It took Olivia Blow less than two minutes to knock on the front door. Alice and A.L. went to answer it. Olivia was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes. She had a small backpack over her left shoulder. She looked to be early thirties. Her hair was a short wavy medium brown and she had big dark brown eyes. Attractive. Looked healthy enough.

“I’m Detective McKittridge with the Baywood Police Department,” he said.

She stuck out her hand and he returned the shake. Rena had joined them in the hallway. “This is my partner, Detective Morgan,” A.L. said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course,” she said, not sounding too concerned.

“We can use Classroom 1,” he said. He didn’t intend to do this in front of Alice.

Rena led the way, Olivia went next, and he brought up the rear. Alice retreated to her office. Once the three of them were inside, both he and Rena pulled out their notebooks.

“May I call you Olivia?” A.L. asked.

“Of course.”

“You’ve been working at the day care full-time for more than two years. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you work before that?”

“I was in college. A late bloomer you might say. Didn’t go anywhere right after high school. But after ten years of waitressing, I’d had enough. I wanted to work with kids.”

“No children of your own?” Rena asked.

“No. Hopefully someday. I haven’t met Mr. Right yet. I’m just thirty-two so I have a few years.”

“Of course,” Rena said.

A.L. knew that Rena could tell Olivia a thing or two about waiting and babies. Rena hadn’t gotten married until she was thirty-six. They’d tried right away, but it was more than two years later and even though there’d been some gymnastics with an infertility specialist, still no pregnancy.