“There’s no record of it.” Rena crossed the room and picked something up from a table. She returned with the clipboard and sign-in sheet, already in a closed and tagged evidence bag. She showed it to A.L. There were two signatures. Neither of them were Elaine Broadstreet.

“I’ve also already bagged and tagged the sign-in sheets located in the two classrooms,” Rena said.

“Mrs. Broadstreet isn’t here?”

“No. She’s on her way.”

“Where are the parents right now?” A.L. asked.

“Troy and Leah are in Classroom 1. They’re shook.”

It was a parent’s worst nightmare. He studied the space. The office was maybe six feet from the front door. “You said that Alice called Kara Wiese to see if Emma was here today.”

“Yes. Because Alice already had Mrs. Broadstreet’s version of events via Troy, she asked Kara about it.”

“And what did Kara say?”

Rena’s eyes looked troubled. “That she never saw Mrs. Broadstreet or Emma this morning.”

Somebody was lying or had a real shitty memory.

“Height and weight of child?” he asked.

“Three-feet-two-inches and forty-four pounds. They had a well-child visit just three weeks ago,” Rena added, to explain the exactness. “She was wearing blue jeans, a pink shirt with a unicorn on it, a gray lightweight hoodie and pink-and-white tennis shoes. And we’ve got a ton of pictures, off the parents’ phones. I had them send me a couple of the best ones.” She held out her phone for A.L. to see.

He looked. Sweet kid. Brown hair to her shoulders, more curly than straight. Round face. Big blue eyes.

“Cameras?” A.L. asked, looking around.

“No.”

“The whole building has been searched?” A.L. asked.

“Yes. Inside and the immediate perimeter of the building.”

It would have been too fucking easy if she’d been hiding in a closet. “So we’ve got a five-year-old who hasn’t been seen for over ten hours?” A.L. said. That had to be their priority. Find the kid. Then figure out what had happened and who was at fault. The temperature in Baywood had been a pleasant seventy-six today, according to the weather app on his phone. He’d checked it at the airport. Tonight it would get down to midfifties. Not great for a kid wearing what Rena had described.

He looked down the long hallway that led to the back door. Behind the center was a parking lot for staff and beyond that was rural Wisconsin—lots of corn and beans that hadn’t yet been harvested and even some pastureland for dairy cows. If the child had been dropped off this morning but never found her way to a classroom, was it possible that she’d somehow made her way out the door and wandered off somewhere? Or had someone taken her?

Both were terrifying thoughts.