Chapter 2 - LUCA KNEW A DIFFERENT EMILY
James locked the bakery door.
Then called his attorney, Mara Chen.
Not police.
Not yet.
He had learned what panic did to evidence ten years earlier.
Mara arrived twenty-seven minutes later with a child-welfare advocate named Rebecca Sloan.
Luca had eaten two sandwiches by then.
Slowly at first.
Then too quickly.
James tried not to stare at him.
Every expression felt like a clue.
Rebecca sat across from Luca.
“No one is in trouble.”
Luca nodded.
“Can you tell me about your mother?”
The boy looked toward James.
“She called herself Emma.”
James’s heart lurched.
“Emma?”
Luca nodded.
“She said Emily was an old name.”
Mara watched James carefully.
“Did Emily ever use Emma?”
“Yes.”
His voice cracked.
“Her middle name.”
Emily Emma Whitmore.
Rebecca asked:
“Where did you live?”
“Different places.”
“What kind?”
“Motels. A trailer. Sometimes shelters.”
“Who else was with you?”
Luca’s face changed.
“A man named Victor.”
James went still.
Victor Hale.
Emily’s former business partner.
The last person police verified seeing her the night she disappeared.
Victor had told investigators Emily left their downtown office at 7:10 p.m.
Alone.
He passed polygraphs.
Provided records.
Lawyered up.
Then vanished from James’s life.
James whispered:
“Victor Hale?”
Luca nodded.
“He was mean.”
Mara wrote the name down.
James stared.
Ten years earlier, police never had evidence Victor harmed Emily.
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Suspicion was not proof.
Now a child who called Emily mother had connected them again.
