'Elizabeth's been taken at gunpoint!'

My sister Cynthia didn't jump when the phone rang. Cynthia is a pediatrician; it wouldn't have been the first time a patient called her at 4:30 A.M. "I got the phone and it was obviously Ed," Cynthia remembered. "He said 'A man has taken Elizabeth.' I said, 'This is a dream, right?' He said, 'No, someone came and took Elizabeth at gunpoint.' So I said, 'She's gone?' I kept answering his statements with questions because it just didn't seem possible. We decided to have Doug (Cynthia's husband, Doug Owens) go over to help and hopefully find her. It made more sense for me to stay with the kids, at least until they woke up. The first thing Doug and I did was kneel down and pray. I was crying. Doug said, 'Do you want me to get the gun for you? He has a magnum. I said, 'Oh yeah, I'll either end up shooting myself or the kids.' I remember taking Emmeline — she was two — from her bed early that morning. We have a strict policy, the kids sleep in their own beds, but boy, I picked her up and I just held her next to me in our bed, and I thought I just couldn't handle it if it was one of my children."

My brother David answered the phone. His wife, Julie, remembered how quickly the atmosphere in the bedroom changed. "David's back was toward me when he answered the phone," Julie said. "I heard him asking questions about a 'her.' I thought it was my mom he was talking about, because she's diabetic. Then he said, 'They can't find her?' and his back started moving quickly and his breathing got heavier and heavier. 'I'm going to Ed's,' he said after he hung up. 'Elizabeth has been taken at gunpoint.' And I remember thinking: our world has just changed. The unimaginable has just happened."

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Coming Tuesday: A mother's awful grief.

Readers wishing to order "In Plain Sight: The Startling Truth Behind the Elizabeth Smart Investigation," can log onto the Web site at www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=1556525796&userid=73646112.