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“Emily, listen to me,” Claire said. “I’ve already sent police officers to your house. They are coming right now. Can you tell me where you are?”
“In my room.”
“Can you lock the door?”
“No. He took the lock away.”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
In the patrol car three miles away, Officer Daniel Harris glanced at the call notes on the in-dash screen while his partner, Officer Maria Lopez, took the next turn too fast. The red and blue lights painted brief streaks across the dark windows of quiet homes. Daniel had worked enough child-endangerment calls to know that the ugliest houses were often the cleanest on the outside. Evil loved a normal lawn. It loved an ordinary mailbox and a porch light glowing like nothing in the world was wrong.
The dispatcher’s notes kept updating.
CHILD FEMALE.
POSSIBLE THREAT IN HOME.
FATHER PRESENT.
CHILD STATES “HURTS ME.”
LINE ACTIVE.
Maria pressed harder on the gas. “Four minutes,” she muttered.
“Too long,” Daniel said.