Looking up crimes in Dover would be enough for them to find it. “It was a pleasure to meet you in person, Mrs. Cannon,” Rena said.

“You, too, Detectives. Don’t touch the railing on your way out,” she added.

A.L. was pushing buttons on his phone by the time Rena got into the passenger seat. To whoever answered, he said, “We need info on what is likely a cold case from about ten years ago. Dover, Wisconsin. Missing five-year-old. Similar circumstances to Emma Whitman. We’ll be back in the office in ten minutes.”

He hung up his phone. Neither of them said anything.

He drove and she tried to quiet her head, which was roiling with this new information. They parked in the lot and quickly walked inside. Then it was up the elevator. By the time they crossed the threshold of their office, they were practically running toward the manila folder that was on A.L.’s chair.

He opened it. Just one sheet of paper. He held it so that they could both read.

“Holy shit,” he said after another minute.

Indeed. Corrine Antler, age five, had been dropped off at a day care and discovered missing approximately ten hours later. No ransom. She had never been found.

Rena gripped the back of the chair. “So similar,” she said softly.

“Too fucking similar,” A.L. said. “We’re going to Dover.”

Six

The lead detective on the Corrine Antler case had been Doug Franklin. He’d retired from the Dover Police Department two years earlier and most nice days could be found on the golf course. A.L. got this from Franklin’s former supervisor, who was still riding a desk for the Dover PD.

“I wasn’t here when the Antler case happened,” Brent Smoke said. “I was hired three years later so it was technically a cold case. But I know that Doug Franklin thought about that child every day, that he never stopped trying to figure out what had happened to her. I’m sorry the two of you are mixed up in something similar. I’d be happy to let you look at our file.”

A.L. wanted to talk to Doug Franklin first. “I’d appreciate any help that you can give us to connect with Mr. Franklin. Perhaps his cell phone number.”

“We don’t, as a rule, give out a former employee’s personal cell number. Even to other officers. But I’ll give him a call. See if he’s available. Why don’t the two of you have a cup of coffee in the waiting area?”

Neither Rena nor A.L. was likely to turn down coffee. It was hot and slightly bitter but no worse than what was brewed at the Baywood PD. And they barely had time to finish a cup before Brent Smoke came to find them.

“He’ll meet you in the clubhouse,” he said, passing an address to A.L.