Rowan scrolls for a bit, then looks up at the playground. “What was the angle?” he asks me. “Where was he filming from?”
I take a deep breath and wipe my face. I look across the street and try to remember what I saw on the screen. The back of the school is directly across from where we’re parked. The playground is a large rectangle that flanks the building. A wire mesh fence surrounds the perimeter. To the right, there’s a patch of woods, the backyard of an abutting property. To the left is the street corner and across from it, a row of hedges and then the front lawn of another parcel.
“I saw Amy with her friends. She was there—behind the basketball hoop.” I point to the area and try to remember. “Fran was running away from the camera, on the grass—there,” I say, pointing to a different spot. “The building was to her right.” I look at the vantage points, the woods, the hedges, the streets, and it falls into place. “He was on foot.”
Rowan gets out of the car.
Thinking through the scene changes my focus, and I settle enough to do my job. I join Rowan, then walk to the spot where the scene matches what I saw on the feed. We’re in front of the woods.
It’s impossible to gauge exactly how far away from the playground he was. He was zooming in and out.
“He was close,” I say. “The view wasn’t obstructed.” I walk four or five yards beyond the tree line and stop, turn around, and walk forward a couple of feet. “Here,” I say.
Rowan checks the brush for anything he might have left, but of course, there is nothing.
He turns slowly in a circle, looking for ways in and out. We walk through the woods to the house, around to the front, and ring the bell. No one’s home. Beyond their front yard is another street, and we think that maybe he parked there, walked the path we just did in reverse, and used the cover of the trees to observe and film the playground—and my girls.
We go to the street and do all of the things we know to do, not because we’re remotely hopeful we’ll find a damned thing, but because I have to do something and Rowan knows it. When we’re done, when we’ve exhausted everything we know to do, I walk back toward the school.
One thought echoes in my head:Get your children!
Rowan follows. “Wait...”
But I keep moving, faster now. Around the corner until I see the entrance. The instinct overwhelms me. I need to get inside that building.
Rowan grabs my arms and stops me. “Elise—wait!”
I try to break free. Rowan does a visual sweep.
“Think,” he whispers and holds me to him, tighter and tighter until I can’t move and my body stops fighting.
He doesn’t have to say more. I know what it will do to them if I enter the building, calling out their names, hysterical, terrified. The moment will stay with them. It will never leave. It will change the way they see the world. The way they see me and our life. The wires inside their heads.
“Okay,” I tell him. Promising. “I’m okay.”
He lets me go and takes my face in the palms of his hands. “They’re safe, Elise. They’re safe.”
And I repeat the words until I know it’s true.
“They’re safe.”
The moment passes, and we find ourselves back at the car. I’m wired but also exhausted. We get inside, but Rowan doesn’t drive. He takes my phone and looks at a message that preceded the live feed, searching for something that might help us find Wade.
“He’s said this before,” Rowan reminds me. “‘I just want to see you.’”
I nod and catch my breath. Wipe my face. I’m a mess, inside and out. “And now he’s threatening my family.” I stare at the phone, even though the live feed is gone.
“What do you want to do?”
For the first time in my life, I don’t see a path forward. Wade is a ghost, and we have nothing to go on. No prints or hair or soda cans or coffee cups. No vacuum dust from a dumpster or tire marks or even a license plate. We have a facial composite. Witnesses to a crime that happened over two weeks ago, their memories now compromised by time. A community weary of the story, changing the channel. It’s next to nothing.
The resignation begins to settle in. I know how to do this work. Take my time, be patient and methodical. But Wade is a lit fuse. We don’t have that luxury.
I think about the burner phone. I think about telling Rowan, pulling it from my pocket and handing it over. I picture his face when I do—the anger that I waited, then the determination to find this man and make him pay. And then what? I go down one of two roads—the first, traveled with my partner and the department, following the rules, keeping me safe first and foremost. It feels narrow and confined, and I know it will come to an end. Wade will stop using the phone and find another way to get to me. The second road feels wide and endless. And under my control.
Looking at the crossroads, having taken my small steps, I can still see the way back. This feels like the point when I have to choose.
I keep the phone in my pocket as a plan takes shape.
