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“No,” Lara said. “We talked about that, about strangers and danger.”
“What about Ava’s father? Are you two together?” Ellie asked, squeezing the woman’s hands, which were slick with sweat.
“No, we’re separated,” she said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.
Ellie snatched a tissue from the box on the principal’s desk and handed it to Lara, her mind racing. A large percentage of child kidnappings were parental abductions, many involving custody disputes.
“How is your relationship?” she asked.
“Fine,” Lara said, after blowing her nose on the tissue. “I mean, not great. But we’re civil.”
“Does he see Ava?”
“He did at first,” Lara said, “then he started dating and he stopped showing up. Ava was so disappointed.”
“But if he drove up and Ava saw him, she might go over to him? Or even get in the car with him?”
That suggestion seemed to settle Lara’s nerves slightly. “Yes, she probably would.” She gave Ellie a wide-eyed look. “Do you think that’s what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said. She hoped it was. “Has he ever taken Ava without asking you before?”
“No, but he started making noises about seeing her more a few weeks ago. He even mentioned shared custody.”
“How did you feel about that?” Ellie asked, her instincts kicked up.
Lara clamped her teeth over her bottom lip. “We argued.”
It was looking more and more like the father had motive. “I need his contact information.”
Fumbling with her phone again, Lara found it. “I’ll call him.”
“Put him on speaker.”
Ellie held her breath as they listened to the phone ring over and over. But Ava’s father didn’t answer.
“Please pick up!” Lara screeched.
The phone rolled to voicemail. Lara’s face wilted and she banged her hand against her head. “Jasper, it’s Lara. Call me. It’s an emergency. I need to know if you have Ava.”
Seven
“Lara, I need to know where your husband lives and where he works,” Ellie said, her stomach knotting in frustration. “If he doesn’t call you back, I’ll go find him.”
The woman nodded. “I have all those details in his phone contact—since we separated, I’ve had to share them so often. Untangling our lives, you know…?”
Ellie smiled in understanding, and sympathy filled her as Lara tried to wrangle her phone with shaking hands. “Let me do it.” She gently took the cell, found Jasper’s contact information and forwarded it to herself. He worked for a construction company named Cato’s Construction.
If he had Ava, she didn’t want to give him a chance to run, so she decided to surprise him by just showing up. But she did phone the construction company to see if he was there first.
A friendly woman named Connie answered, and Ellie identified herself. “It’s important I speak with Jasper Truman,” she told the receptionist. “Is he working today?”
“Afraid not,” the woman said. “He’s taking off a couple of days.”
Ellie’s skin prickled. “Did he say where he was going?”
“No, just that he needed to take a trip.” The receptionist hesitated. “Is Jasper in trouble or something?”
“It’s actually about his daughter, Ava. She didn’t show up at school today and her mother is frantic.”
