Chapter 9 - THE THIRD GIRL
Ruiz had never heard the name Maddie. Neither had Sam.
Emma explained that Ava had visited our house once with Nora, while I was working. They played in Emma’s room. Ava told her a girl named Maddie had shown her how to find the tiny camera hidden in her stuffed animals.
“How old was Maddie?” Ruiz asked.
“Big,” Emma said. “She could ride a bike without help.”
Sam leaned forward. “Ava’s cousin Madison. Celia told me Madison moved away.”
Ruiz searched school records. Madison Mercer, nine years old at the time, had left Celia’s address after Ava’s custody hearing. Her father had reported that she refused to talk about visits to her aunt’s house.
I could see Sam thinking back through every conversation he’d had with his daughter.
“Can we talk to her?” he asked.
Ruiz found Madison’s father and called him. He was cautious until she mentioned Nora. Then he said Madison had kept a letter Nora mailed her. She had never shown it to anyone.
They arrived at the station that evening. Madison was eleven now, tall and serious. She sat with her father beside her and placed Nora’s letter on the table.
Nora had asked her to describe what she saw at Celia’s house, in her own words.
Madison spoke without looking up. “Mr. Vale came over a lot. He’d tell Ava that her dad was angry and she shouldn’t go with him. If Ava said she missed him, Mr. Vale made her say the other part again.”
“What other part?” Ruiz asked.
“That she was scared of him.”
Madison’s father put an arm around her.
“I found the first camera,” Madison continued. “Mr. Vale hid it in a stuffed bear. I took a picture because I thought somebody would tell me what it was.”
“Did you tell Nora?”
Madison nodded. “She came to the house when Aunt Celia wasn’t home. She told me I did the right thing.”
Ruiz asked what happened next.
“I heard Aunt Celia talking on the phone. She said the camera had to disappear before the hearing. So I gave it to Miss Nora.”
The first camera. The one in Emma’s room might have been Nora’s replacement.
Then Madison said something that made us all turn toward her.
“There was a second card. Miss Nora told me she put it somewhere only Emma would look.”
Emma loved puzzles. Nora used to hide little notes for her in books and toy boxes.
May you like
I thought of the rabbit’s stitched smile, its floppy ears, the patch Nora had sewn onto its back.
The patch was shaped like a heart.
