“We’re not harassing him,” I say.
“They’re investigating me,” Vincent tells her.
“What?” Valerie gasps. “You have to be kidding.”
“I wish I was,” I say.
“This is beyond ridiculous. Can’t you see how much damage you’re causing? I don’t feel safe in my own home. Singer can’t even spend time with his friends because neighbors have seen you people here so much and are taunting him about it. But even worse, you’re wasting time you should be spending on the investigation. While you’re here digging through my house, you could be focusing on finding the person who actually did this.”
“Valerie, it’s going to be alright,” Vincent says. “They need to do what they need to do.”
“They need to do what they need to do?” she repeats incredulously. “They are putting the rest of the children of Sherwood, including our son, in more danger by not getting this guy off the street.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Sam says. “We need to follow every lead possible and start eliminating possibilities. For now, you need to step aside so we can finish what we’re doing.”
“No. I’m not going to let you ravage my home,” she says.
“We’re not ravaging anything. We’re searching. And you don’t have a choice. Either you stop impeding our search and let us do our job, or I arrest you for interfering with an investigation, and you can sit at the jail until we’re done. It’s up to you.”
“Fine. We have nothing to hide. Get this over with so you can stop bothering us and let us have our lives back.”
She steps back and watches through angry, narrowed eyes as the team gathers stacks of notebooks, papers, books, and computers to bring out. Maybe somewhere in all that, we will find something. And if not, it will let us close that path and start on a new one.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rather than heading back to the station after we leave Vincent’s house, Sam turns in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” I ask. “I thought you would want to start looking through that evidence as soon as possible.”
“I do,” he says, “but there’s somewhere we need to go first.”
“Where?
“The community center.”
In all the chaos of the flash drive and the search through the scrapyard, I didn’t even remember the fourth child to go missing. Now it crashes back down on me, and my mind starts churning. Now there are two still missing. Two we can’t account for.
We get to the other side of town, and Sam pulls the car into the parking lot outside the large church I remember in scattered memories. When I was much younger, my grandparents came to services every week and often brought me along with them. As I get older in my mind, the memories become fewer. Most of them revolve around the social events rather than the services themselves. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam glance my way. I know he remembers the Valentine’s Day dance and the summer picnic, too.
“What are we doing here?” I ask. “I thought we were going to the community center.”
“We are,” he nods, climbing out of the car. “It’s attached to the church.”
“It is?”
“A lot has stayed the same around here since you were gone, but there’ve been some changes, too.”
We walk through the parking lot and up the sidewalk like we’re going to head into the main portion of the building where the sanctuary is, but then Sam turns. He leads me around the side of the building toward what I remember was a small playground and field of scrub grass. Now a large addition sits out from the main church, hidden from view from the parking lot, but sprawling once we get to the end of the sidewalk. Where the small playground once had just enough swings for children to get very good at taking turns and a slide that made waste of many a Sunday dress, new, elaborate equipment sprouts up from rubber mulch.
“This is definitely new,” I comment.
Sam nods. “The community wanted a place where people could come together and feel connected. The adult and continuing education people had been wanting to get out of the high school for a long time. And since Sarah, the lady who used to run one of the daycares in town, shut hers down, parents needed somewhere they could trust to leave their children. The community center was born of all that. The church had additional funding in their budget, and the land, and we ran a few big fundraisers, and here we are now.”
“It’s really nice.”
He holds the door open for me, and I walk into the sharply cold air conditioning inside the community center. A curved blue reception desk sits at an angle in the small lobby area, and a pretty blonde woman smiles at us over the cover of a well-loved paperback. She holds it up and gives a grin and half-shrug.
“I know I’m supposed to be clamoring for a tablet and evangelizing the virtues of the ebook, but I can’t help it. I like pages.”
“Me, too,” I tell her.
“Is there some sort of art program for children going on here this week?” Sam asks.
The woman nods cheerfully. “You bet. The young ones do seem to enjoy it. It’s amazing what they can create when their little minds are just allowed to go.”
“It is,” he agrees. “Can you point me in the direction of where that’s held?”
Her eyes suddenly darken, and the smile fades from her lips.
“Oh, no. Is this about Gloria? I hoped her mother would have figured out what happened by now.”
“Can you show me where the room is?” Sam asks again, not giving anything away.
The woman points to one hallway leading away from the lobby and gives us a simple set of instructions.
“I forgot how fast news travels around here,” I say as we make our way to the large open room. Inside several tables are packed with children, while others take up sections of the floor and activity centers set up around the room. To one side, the walls extend out to create an office. I notice a clipboard hanging from the wall just inside the door. “Here’s the sign-out sheet Bianca was talking about.”
Sam flips the top page back and runs his finger down the list. “And there’s Bianca’s signature saying she picked Gloria up.”
I take the several steps to the side it takes to get away from the door to the office and back to a position overlooking the room full of children.
“The way the office is set up, you can’t see the door or the clipboard from most of the room,” I point out. “Unless someone was in the office or specifically watching for it, it’s likely no one would see a parent signing their child out.”
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” a woman says, walking up to us and eyeing the clipboard in my hands. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes. I need to talk to whoever is in charge of the art program,” he says.
“That’s me. I’m Holly Devlin.” She shakes his hand. “I run this program and a few of the others at the community center.”
“Are you here every day?” I ask.
“Yes. As you can probably imagine, community centers don’t usually enjoy the luxury of a big staff. I love these programs and want them to be the best they can possibly be for the children and the rest of the community, so I am here every day the center is open. Six days a week. Usually from opening until close.”
“So, you were here when Bianca Hernandez came to pick up her daughter and realized she was missing,” Sam says.
Holly’s back stiffens, and she pulls her shoulders back almost protectively.
“Yes. It was a particularly busy day, and the children were more restless than usual because we didn’t go outside for as long as we normally do. The weather wasn’t good, and I didn’t think they should be out there. One of the girls who assists me got sick and had to go home early, so things were a little chaotic. I knew Gloria was going to be leaving early. Her mother let me know at the beginning of the day that she was only working part of the day and would be by to get Gloria in the early afternoon. I hoped to see her off, but a group of boys got into a scuffle, and while I was handling it, she left.”