Mia screamed again.
Then the intercom went silent.
I ran for the door.
Dana caught me before I reached the hallway.
“My daughter is out there.”
“I know.”
“Then let go.”
“If the person who took her expects you to run blindly through this building, don't give them exactly what they want.”
The school resource officer ordered an immediate lockdown.
Doors closed.
Teachers locked classrooms.
Nobody entered or left.
Kaylee stood beside Mrs. Fox's desk.
“That was Mrs. Pruitt.”
I turned.
Their teacher.
Mrs. Fox asked if she was certain.
Kaylee nodded.
“She talks like that when she's angry but wants everybody to think she isn't.”
The secretary checked the staff system.
Carol Pruitt had called in sick.
Her badge, however, had opened the east entrance at 8:41.
Four minutes later the security camera near that door had stopped transmitting.
Mia disappeared at 8:47.
Police teams spread through the building.
Kaylee tugged my sleeve.
“The music room.”
“What music room?”
“The old one.”
Mrs. Fox explained.
An unused rehearsal room sat beneath the auditorium. Water damage had closed it years earlier, but staff service keys still existed.
Kaylee said Mrs. Pruitt kept old keys in her desk.
Officers headed toward the auditorium.
Then the intercom activated.
“Bring the memory card.”
Mrs. Pruitt's voice.
“Come to the auditorium alone. Otherwise you'll hear your daughter again.”
I reached toward the evidence.
The detective stopped me.
“She wants the proof.”
“She has Mia.”
“We already copied the files.”
“Then give her the card.”
He prepared a decoy.
A blank memory card went into an evidence sleeve identical to the original.
A tiny transmitter was clipped beneath my collar.
“You stop at the auditorium entrance.”
“If I see Mia, I'm going to her.”
“She may be armed.”
Kaylee spoke.
“She has a little silver knife.”
The detective looked at her.
“In her purse.”
The warning went over the radio.
I started walking.
The school looked almost grotesquely ordinary.
Paper planets hung from strings.
Children's paintings covered the walls.
Someone had made a crooked cardboard rainbow above a classroom door.
Near the auditorium I found something purple.
Mia's hair tie.
Farther along lay one sock.
She was leaving a trail.
I picked it up.
“I'm coming, Mia.”
A door creaked.
“Show me the card.”
The auditorium was dark.
Morning light came through high windows.
Mrs. Pruitt stood near the stage.
Mia was trapped against her.
A narrow silver blade rested beside my daughter's ribs.
Silver tape hung from Mia's wrist.
One hand was already free.
“Let her go.”
“Put down the card.”
“You get it when that knife moves away.”
Mrs. Pruitt laughed softly.
“You've spent too much time listening to Kaylee. She thinks everything is negotiable.”
“You were her teacher.”
“She was supposed to follow instructions.”
Mia looked at me.
“She said you care about Kaylee more than me.”
My chest tightened.
“I'm standing right here for you.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Pruitt pulled her closer.
“Put it down.”
I placed the evidence sleeve on the stage.
She ordered me backward.
I obeyed.
She snatched it.
Then she started dragging Mia toward the backstage stairs.
“What happens when you see the evidence is gone?” I asked.
“You leave.”
“With Mia?”
“She comes back when we know it's gone.”
We.
One careless word.
Mrs. Pruitt realized it too late.
“Tasha and Marlene are already under arrest,” I said. “Greg is talking.”
I had no idea whether Greg had said anything useful.
Mrs. Pruitt did not know that.
Her grip changed.
“Greg doesn't know everything.”
“He knew about Eli.”
“He knows nothing about the others.”
Others.
Not merely the children in the photographs.
More.
“How many?”
She smiled.
“Ask Angela Fox.”
My eyes flicked toward the auditorium doors.
Mrs. Pruitt moved.
She grabbed the evidence sleeve and dragged Mia backward.
Mia twisted suddenly.
Her heel came down hard on Mrs. Pruitt's foot.
Then my daughter reached sideways and pulled the fire alarm.
The building exploded with sound.
Emergency locks released.
Mrs. Pruitt lost her grip.
Mia ran.
I ran toward her.
The knife lifted.
Before Mrs. Pruitt reached us, the heavy stage curtain crashed between us.
The resource officer had released it from the booth.
Police surged from both sides.
One officer caught Mia.
Another brought Mrs. Pruitt to the floor.
The knife skittered across the stage.
I dropped beside my daughter.
She wrapped both arms around my neck.
“I knew you'd come.”
“There was nowhere else I was going.”
Kaylee appeared with Dana.
Mia reached for her.
Kaylee ran.
For several seconds we sat together on the floor while the fire alarm screamed overhead.
When officers lifted Mrs. Pruitt, she stared at Kaylee.
“This is because of you.”
Mia stepped in front of her friend.
Her voice shook.
“No. It's because of you.”
Police recovered Mrs. Pruitt's phone.
Messages connected her directly to Tasha and Marlene.
Tasha had warned her about the pink sneakers.
If police found the memory card, Mia was to be taken and exchanged for the evidence.
Another message had instructed Marlene to move Eli.
Older conversations reached back years.
One concerned Brianna Cole.
Tasha had complained that Brianna would not stop talking.
Mrs. Pruitt suggested moving her beyond the county.
Marlene had a farmhouse.
They could give Brianna another name.
Police demanded the location.
Mrs. Pruitt refused.
Marlene asked for an attorney.
Tasha remained silent.
Greg finally broke.
When investigators confronted him with the video showing him carrying Eli, he provided an address near the state border.
Police entered the farmhouse.
It had been occupied recently.
Children's clothing filled three bedrooms.
Documents contained seven false identities.
Brianna was gone.
Coffee on the kitchen table was still warm.
Someone had left minutes before police arrived.
Paramedics examined Mia.
She had bruising around one wrist but no serious injury.
Kaylee refused to move far from her.
At the hospital, Eli was recovering.
When someone showed him Kaylee's photograph, he touched the screen.
“Sissy.”
I thought that finally explained the relationship between them.
I was wrong.
At 11:36, an officer entered the counselor's office.
“A woman downstairs is asking for Kaylee.”
Kaylee grabbed my hand.
“I'm not going.”
“Nobody is taking you anywhere,” Dana said.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Rachel Mercer.”
Kaylee looked up.
Mercer.
Eli's surname.
Not Whitman.
Dana asked whether she recognized the name.
“My mom was Rachel.”
A pause.
“Dad said she died when I was a baby.”
The woman downstairs carried identification, court documents, and an original birth certificate.
Rachel entered a few minutes later.
She looked exhausted in a way that sleep alone could never repair.
She carried an old photograph.
In it, a much younger Rachel held a newborn wrapped in pink.
Around the baby's wrist was a hospital band.
KAYLEE MERCER.
Rachel's eyes filled.
“I've been looking for you for seven years.”
Kaylee backed against me.
“My mom is dead.”
“No.”
Rachel glanced toward the police cars outside.
“That's what Greg wanted you to believe.”
When detectives showed Rachel a photograph of Eli, her knees buckled.
“My son.”
Kaylee stared at her.
Rachel explained slowly.
Greg and Tasha had not simply taken Kaylee years earlier.
Five years later, Eli had disappeared too.
“Why?” I asked.
Rachel opened the folder she had carried inside.
She removed an old staff photograph from the private family-services agency.
Tasha stood among the employees.
Greg was there.
Marlene Pike.
Carol Pruitt.
And another woman.
I recognized her immediately.
Rachel touched the photograph.
“She helped decide which children they could take.”
I turned toward the counselor's desk.
Angela Fox's chair was empty.
The exterior office door stood open.
The place where the evidence bag had been was bare.
The real memory card was gone.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Angela Fox Vanished With the Memory Card, but the Files She Left Behind Revealed Kaylee Had Been Watched Long Before First Grade
Kaylee Refused to Remove Her Pink Sneakers, and the Fear Behind That Simple Choice Made Me Watch Her Father Differently
Part 4 of 28
