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So she hadn’t overdone it on the pills.
The bathroom smelled of a floral-scented body wash, and a wet towel hung on a rack. She quickly moved on and found Ava’s room. A white four-poster bed was draped in a neon-green comforter with a half dozen stuffed animals on top. Children’s puzzles, a Barbie dollhouse and a shelf overflowing with books painted the picture of a happy child.
Ellie searched for signs of foul play but found nothing. Even the drawings on the child’s desk were pictures of rainbows and sunshine and flowers. Daisies seemed to be a theme.
She went back downstairs and saw Lara hugging a rag doll to her, running her fingers through the red yarn hair.
Ellie paused beside the couch. “Lara, I need you to do one more thing for me.”
The woman blinked at the tears and looked up at her through blurry eyes. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Just find my baby.”
Ellie nodded. “One of our deputies has been searching your neighborhood and talking to residents to see if any of them saw Ava this morning. I want you to show me the path your daughter takes to the bus stop.”
Her soft tone seemed to help Lara pull herself together. Brushing at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, she gestured for Ellie to follow her.
When they stepped outside, watery sunshine dappled the leaves on the trees. As they turned left onto the sidewalk and headed toward the bus stop, she sensed Lara’s tension escalating with every step.
Ellie surveyed the street as they went, searching for anything that might be out of place. Lara Truman lived on a quaint street of starter homes that had been built about ten years ago to cater to young families. Evidence of that existed in the children’s bikes and toys in the yards.
A stiff breeze stirred the trees as they neared a park, and two mothers strolling babies hurried from the gates as they passed, rushing to their cars before the clouds unleashed.
Lara paused at the bus stop, her face pained as she glanced at the empty sidewalk. “This is where the kids meet for the bus,” she said in a haunted voice.
Ellie turned and scanned the area, realizing the park was almost directly across the way. A parking lot sat on the opposite side of the playground and the soccer field, which was empty now.
If Ava’s father—or a kidnapper—took Ava, he or she could easily have gotten her across the park and no one would have suspected. The parking lot provided easy access for an escape.
“Go back to the house,” Ellie told Lara. “I want to look around the park.”
“I’ll look with you,” Lara offered.
“No, go home. If your husband calls or if somehow Ava just wandered off and finds her way back home, you should be there.”
Hope lit Lara’s eyes, and she turned and jogged back toward the house.
Ellie headed across the park, scanning for any signs Ava had been there. In the playground, the empty swings creaking back and forth in the breeze sounded eerie. A gray cloud gathered above the treetops.
She was parting bushes along the edge of the parking lot when she spotted something behind an oak. She hurried to see what it was, her heart hammering. The fluffy white ears of a stuffed bunny rabbit poked through the weeds. Lara had mentioned that Ava carried her favorite bunny with her everywhere she went.
There was no way she would have thrown it in the bushes and left it there.
She must have lost it, possibly when someone forced her to go with them.
Ten
Pine Street Duplexes, Stony Gap
Special Agent Derrick Fox hated missing-children cases. They always resurrected painful memories of when his sister Kim had disappeared. For over two decades, he and his mother had agonized over what had happened to her. Had prayed they’d find her alive.
But she’d been dead the entire time.
He hoped this situation would turn out differently.
He couldn’t get the image of the smiling little brown-haired girl in the photo Ellie had sent out of his head. Big blue eyes. A button nose. A missing front tooth when she smiled. Freckles.
He fought the dark thoughts that came to him and latched on to the hope that the father had taken her. With the holidays upon them, maybe he’d just wanted to spend time with his daughter. It never ceased to amaze him how some parents used their kids to hurt each other.
The wintry breeze picked up, swirling leaves and twigs across the yard of the duplex where Jasper Truman lived. The wooden exterior of the building was rustic, the two units part of a complex of several that appeared to have been recently built. From the way the units sat on the property, he could see each one had a back deck which gave views of the mountains rising in the background.
