Chapter 11 - THE NIGHT NORA DIED
Ruiz came to the apartment at sunrise with the crash report and new photographs from the road where Nora died.
A traffic camera had caught two vehicles heading toward the Miller house that night: Nora’s car and Diane’s. Vale’s SUV appeared nineteen minutes later. On the return trip, the camera showed Nora first, with Vale behind her.
“The original investigation treated it as a single-car accident,” Ruiz said. “We’re reopening it.”
“Did Vale force her off the road?”
“We can’t say yet.”
She had other news. The team looking for Ava had found Celia’s blue sedan outside a bus station. Celia was alone when officers approached her. She said Ava had run away at a rest stop.
Sam heard that and stood so quickly his chair hit the wall.
“She’s eleven,” he said. “They lost her?”
Ruiz raised a hand. “We have officers checking the station and every camera on the route.”
I thought of Ava holding the sign in front of the motel. She had been trying to reach us while the adults around her planned another move.
Celia agreed to speak to Ruiz with an attorney present. I watched through a window as Ruiz laid out Nora’s recordings.
Celia insisted that Vale had made every decision. She said Diane had helped only because she worried Sam would take Ava. But when Ruiz asked where Ava was, Celia stopped answering.
Madison’s father arrived at the station a little later. Madison had received a message on her tablet overnight.
It was from Ava.
I’M OKAY. DON’T TELL MOM WHERE I AM.
Ruiz asked Madison to reply, offering a place for Ava to meet an officer without Celia present. Ava read the message but said nothing.
Outside the station, I found Sam standing alone beside the vending machines.
“She knows I’m looking,” he said. “Why won’t she call me?”
“She’s had people telling her who to trust for years.”
“I know.” He stared at his phone. “I just want her to know she can choose.”
My own phone buzzed. Caleb had sent a picture of Emma making toast at the apartment. She’d put three pieces on a plate, one for each of us.
Then Madison called Ruiz. Ava had written back.
I want to see Sam, the message said. Bring him to the library on Fifth Street. No one else.
Ruiz checked the address. The library was six blocks from the bus station.
Sam grabbed his coat. Ruiz stopped him at the door.
“Look at the time on the message,” she said.
It had been scheduled to send forty minutes after Ava’s tablet last connected to the internet. Someone had set up the meeting in advance.
May you like
At that moment, the station received a call from the witness apartment. An officer had seen Diane outside.
Emma was still inside with Caleb.
