Chapter 2 - SIRENS AT THE GATE
I called 911 with one hand while holding Emily with the other.
The dispatcher kept asking questions in a steady voice I will probably remember for the rest of my life. Was my daughter breathing normally? Was she conscious? Was anyone else on the property? Did I know what was in the pool? I answered as clearly as I could, but my eyes kept darting between the back door, the green water, and the little metal cage where my child had been sitting like an animal.
Emily was burning up and shivering at the same time.
I wrapped her in the tarp I had pulled off the enclosure and carried her toward the patio. She wouldn’t let go of me.
Mrs. Harris, the neighbor who had shown me the low stretch of fence, climbed through the side opening behind me and gasped when she saw the cage.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
The first patrol unit arrived within minutes. Then paramedics. Then another cruiser. The gate at the front of the house had to be cut open. One officer stayed with me while the others moved toward the pool and the house.
Emily started crying the second a paramedic tried to take her from my arms.
“Don’t make me stay,” she begged. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said immediately. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A female paramedic crouched beside us, her voice low and gentle. “Emily, we need to check you out, sweetheart. Your dad can come with you.”
That was the only reason she loosened her grip.
While they examined her, I spoke with Detective Laura Bennett from the county sheriff’s office. She asked me when I had last spoken to Sarah, whether there were custody disputes, whether Jason had ever threatened me, and why I came that day instead of earlier.
I answered everything.
Then I asked the only question I cared about.
“Is Sarah in that pool?”
Detective Bennett didn’t lie to me.
“We don’t know yet.”
A fire-rescue team arrived to secure the water. Two officers forced the back door and entered the house. Ten minutes later one of them came back outside.
“The house is empty,” he said.
Empty.
No Sarah. No Jason. No explanation.
As the ambulance doors shut around Emily and me, I looked back toward the pool and saw officers shining lights across the murky surface. One of them pointed toward the deep end.
The black bags hadn’t moved.
May you like
But for the first time, I noticed something else.
Near the pump shed beside the pool, the wet concrete had fresh scrape marks, like something heavy had been dragged there recently.
