Anna, Raphael, and I have joined everyone else in the parlor.
Anna is dressed—something she must have done when I was talking to Raphael. Raphael is still in his pajamas.
The room is filled with tension and adrenaline-fueled excitement that hums like electricity running along a transmission line.
The buzzer sounds and after a quick glance Roderick buzzes the front door open.
Derinda, Henrique, and two deputies rush in.
“Oh, John, I’m so sorry,” Derinda says. “This can’t be happening again. It’s . . . it’s too much.”
“The deputies searched us and our car,” Henrique says. “I told them we left together and everyone saw us, and we didn’t have a little girl with us, but . . .”
“Search everything we have,” Derinda says. “Hell, you can strip search me if you want. Just find Taylor fast.”
“I want one of you in here,” Roderick is saying to the deputies. “One outside on the front door. And the other four searching the neighborhood and going door to door.”
One deputy stays and one turns to leave.
“And you and Haskins watch the side yards too, not just the front and back doors,” Roderick says to the exiting deputy.
“You got it,” he says, and is gone.
“How can we help?” Rake asks.
“I know you all want to help,” Roderick says, “but the biggest help you can be right now is by staying here so we know where everybody is.”
He turns to me.
“Let’s form two search teams so we can get through the entire house faster,” I say. “Be thorough. Check every room, every space inside every room. Everything. Keith and Christopher, do you each have a master key that works on every door in the house?”
They nod.
“Would you each go with one of the search teams, unlock every door and lead us methodically through the entire house?”
They nod again.
Christopher says, “Absolutely.”
“Of course,” Keith says.
“Why do you think she’s still in the house?” Anna asks me.
“We can’t be sure that she is,” I say, “but no one has left—except Henrique and Derinda earlier, and we all saw them and know they didn’t have her—and it doesn’t seem like there’s been enough time to get her out.”
“We’ve got roadblocks set up,” Roderick says. “And deputies in the yard and going around the neighborhood.”
“Somebody needs to search the woods behind the house,” Vic says. “Don’t forget that’s where I found the pajamas today.”
“I’ll lead a team out there,” Anna says, her voice conveying her anger and sadness and frustration and fatigue. “I just feel like she’s not in the house any longer. Do y’all have some bright flashlights?”
When I turn toward Anna and start to say something she narrows her eyes and shakes her head, her expression forbidding me from saying anything to her.
“It’s dark and dangerous out there,” Roderick says. “We should—”
“We’re talking about my little girl,” Anna says. “There’s no place too dark or too dangerous. And there’s nobody who’s gonna stop me.”
“Why not let the two deputies guarding the doors go with her?” Derinda says. “And we can watch the doors. You can put two or three of us on each door so we can watch the doors and each other. That way everything is watched and searched and everyone is accounted for.”
Roderick nods. “I like that. That’s a great idea.”
“Just put this sleepy ass bastard in my group,” Rake says, nodding toward Raphael, who is slumped in the high-back chair by the fireplace dozing. I ain’t buyin’ his Sleeping Beauty alibi.”