"As you said yourself, I had to go home and change my pants. The last time I saw Kayla Alexander, she was alive and heading back to school."
"So you left school, had sex with Kayla Alexander in her car, then came back to school."
"What of it?"
Will could feel his own smile spread across his face. "I've got some more Latin for you, Evan."
Bernard held out his hands in a wide shrug, indicating Will should fire away.
"In loco parentis," Will said. "In place of the parent."
Bernard's hands were still out, but his expression had drastically changed.
"By law, you're Kayla's guardian—her acting parent—during school hours. According to the state, it's illegal to have sex with anyone who is under your supervisory control, no matter what their age is." He gave the same open shrug Bernard had used. "I don't think fucking a minor in her car in the middle of a school day is something a parent is allowed to do." Will added, "Even if it is the first time."
Bernard's mouth closed. His nostrils flared. Will could almost see him going over the last two minutes, desperately trying to figure out how he had walked into the trap. The man cleared his throat, but instead of addressing Will, he looked directly into the video camera, saying, "My name is Evan Bernard and I am requesting this interview to be terminated so that I can consult with my lawyer about these spurious allegations."
"Tell me where Emma is, Evan."
"I have nothing to say to you."
"I know you didn't do this by yourself. Tell me who you're working with."
"Mr. Trent, you seem to think you're well versed in the law. I have just asked to speak to my lawyer. This interview is over."
Will walked over to the door and let in the two cops who were standing outside. He told them, "Arrest him."
"For what?"
"Sexual contact"—he turned around, making sure that Bernard was listening—"with a minor."
Will went out into the hallway and leaned against the wall. He could hear the cops reading Evan Bernard his rights, the polite responses the teacher gave in turn, assuring them that he understood everything. The man did not scream or rail against the injustice, he simply seemed to be biding his time, waiting to be processed. It was as if, even as he was being handcuffed, the teacher still thought he held all the power.
If Bernard knew where Emma was being held, he did have all the power.
Will sank down onto his heels and put his face in his hands. He wanted Evan Bernard to resist arrest so that he would have to go back into that room and help the cops subdue him. He wanted to grab the man and throw him to the ground. He wanted to beat him the way Kayla Alexander had been beaten.
Instead, he pulled out his cell phone, holding the pieces together so he could make the call.
"Can I go in?" Faith asked, her words rushed. She had been standing outside Bernard's house for the last hour, waiting for Will to give her the word that they had enough evidence for a warrant.
Will thought of the teacher, the smug look on his face, his certainty that he was going to get away with this. "Call the county," he said. "Tell them to pick up Bernard's trash, then go through whatever they put in the truck. I want you to photograph every step you take."
"What am I looking for?"
"A pair of black pants."
"What about his apartment? Can I go in?"
Evan Bernard came out of his classroom, his hands cuffed behind his back, a cop on either side of him. Amanda would be angry at Will for not being the one to escort the prisoner outside, but he wasn't up to smiling for the cameras. The Atlanta Police Department could have this photo op. Will would be better off spending his time looking for evidence that would convict the bastard.
For his part, Bernard's composure had returned, and he looked down at Will with something like pity. "I hope you find her, Officer. Emma was such a sweet girl."
He kept his head turned, watching Will even as he was being led up the hallway.
Faith asked, "Are you there?"
His hands shook as he struggled not to break the phone into more pieces. "Tear the fucking place apart."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FAITH WATCHED IVAN Sambor swing back the metal battering ram and slam it into Evan Bernard's front door. The wooden jamb splintered in a satisfying way, the cheap dead bolt breaking in two as the metal door swung back on its hinges.
She had easily seen inside the apartment from the outside, but Faith walked through the four rooms with her gun drawn, checking the kitchen, the bathroom and the two small bedrooms. Her impression now was the same as when she had first arrived on the scene: Evan Bernard had known they were coming, known that his earlier arrest for sex with a teenage girl would come to light and that the obvious conclusion would be drawn between what happened on the coast and what happened to Kayla Alexander. Bernard had probably stripped the apartment the minute he had gotten home from school that first day.
Faith could smell bleach in every corner of the house. The closet doors had been left open, easily seen from the bedroom windows. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere-not on the kitchen table, the many bookshelves or, when out of curiosity she decided to check, the blades of the ceiling fans. Even the tops of the doors had been dusted.
Faith holstered her gun and called in Charlie Reed and his team. She leaned her shoulder against the door outside the second bedroom. The walls were pink. Blue and white clouds were painted on the ceiling. The furniture was cheap, probably secondhand, but it reminded Faith of a bedroom set she had seen in the Sears catalogue when she was a little girl. The small chest of drawers and the four-poster bed were laminated in white Formica with swirly, gold trim outlining the knobs and various other architectural details. Fluffy pink pillows were scattered on the bed. There was framed artwork of Winnie the Pooh with Tigger. It was the sort of room every girl dreamed about in the 1980s.
Outside, she heard Will Trent asking one of the cops where Faith was. He had probably blown through every light on the five-mile stretch between Westfield and Evan Bernard's apartment.
Will's jaw was clenched as he walked down the hallway. He had an air of fury about him, and seeing the girly bedroom did nothing to change his disposition. His throat worked as he took in the pink curtains and lace bedspread. Several seconds passed before he could speak. "Do you think he held her here?"
Faith shook her head. "It's too obvious."
Neither one of them walked into the room. Faith knew there would be no evidence in the white sheets, no telltale strands of hair in the freshly vacuumed carpet. Bernard had kept this showcase for his own benefit. She could imagine him coming into the room, sitting on the bed and living out his sick fantasies.
"It's younger than seventeen," Faith said. "The room, I mean. It's the kind of stuff you'd buy for a ten- or eleven-year-old."
"Did you get the pants?"
"They were in the garbage," she told him. "Do you think we'll get any DNA off them?"
"We'd better," he said. "The second ransom call had the same proof of life from yesterday. Maybe the kidnapper got spooked because he saw us around the school."
"Or she's already dead."
"I can't accept that," Will told her, his voice firm.