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“Good morning, girls,” she said with a smile. “I hope you learned your lesson and won’t run away again,” she said to Ava.
Ava clung to Kaylee’s hand, and they obediently sat at the table, sipped their orange juice and took their medications while she cooked breakfast. “I call this eggs-in-a-nest,” she said as she set the plates on the table. “Eat up, then we’re going to color your hair, Ava. It’s going to be so pretty!”
Ava’s bow-like mouth pinched, but Kaylee said nothing, just picked up her fork and took a bite of the egg toast. She turned up the holiday music to fill the silence as the girls ate. Ava pretty much just pushed her food around the plate, but she managed to eat the blueberries that she’d put in small bowls for each girl. After all, blueberries provided anti-inflammatories they both needed.
“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” played on the radio and she sang along, remembering the way Piper would laugh at the silly song. But Kaylee and Ava didn’t laugh.
Irritation nudged her away from her cheerful mood, but she tamped it down. Tomorrow was Christmas. Everything would be perfect on Christmas Day. She glanced at the ornament on the tree with Piper’s picture on it. Piper was here.
Well, almost.
When the girls finished their meal, she removed the dishes, then wrapped a towel around Ava’s shoulders and secured it with a clothespin.
“This won’t take long,” she told Ava. The little girl stiffened, her pouty face back in place. Then she clenched her hands together as she worked the dye into Ava’s hair. “Now it has to sit for twenty minutes, then we’ll rinse it,” she said. “While we wait, let’s make cards for Daddy.” She set markers, crayons, glitter, glue, kids’ scissors and ribbons on the table along with a stack of tagboard.
“Just fold it in half,” she instructed them. “Then you can decorate it any way you want. Daddy will be so excited that you remembered him.”
Kaylee sang along to the holiday music, although Ava remained close-lipped and stoic as she drew a Christmas tree on the front of her card and added ornaments and packages beneath it.
Twenty minutes later, she helped Ava crawl onto the kitchen counter, then lie back over the sink so she could rinse out the dye. When she finished, she helped Ava up, smiling as she saw the change happen before her eyes.
“You look so beautiful now, just like Piper!”
Last night Ava’s little escapade had ruined her plans. But today she would carry them out. The photo of little Sarah taunted her, and she knew she had to have her next. Then her family would be whole again and everything would be as it should be.
One Hundred Thirteen
Bluff County Hospital
Ellie was reeling from her conversation with Priscilla and Jan. If Renee Wilkinson had been murdered and Priscilla attacked because she’d connected Kaylee’s case to Ava Truman’s, this case had just gone from felony kidnapping to homicide.
She tasked Derrick with tracing Priscilla’s text messages, then continued to probe the young woman. “Priscilla, could you tell us what happened at Hangman’s Dome?”
The woman sucked in a breath. “Like I said, I received a text from Jan—at least I thought it was Jan—asking me to meet her there so we could go to the reporter together. But when I got there, I saw a van.”
“What color was the van?” Ellie asked.
“Light, I think white.”
Ellie breathed out. Could it be the same van Nolan Grueler had mentioned? “Then what happened?”
“It was dark and shadowy and at first I thought it was you, Jan,” she said. “But then I knew it wasn’t.”
“What did the woman look like?” Ellie asked.
Priscilla closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, and Ellie realized her head must be throbbing. “I didn’t get a good look at her face, but I think her hair was dark under her hat. In a bob at her chin.”
“That’s good,” Ellie said. “I know this is difficult, but just a few more minutes.”
“You’re doing great.” Jan squeezed Priscilla’s hand.
Priscilla released a trembling breath. “She had a gun,” she said. “And she ordered me to walk toward my car, next to the ridge. And then…” A strangled cry escaped her. “Then she… pushed me over the edge.”
A deafening silence filled the room while Jan blinked in shock.
“Priscilla, did you fight with her? Maybe scratch her?”
She rubbed her temple again. “I… can’t remember. It happened so fast.”
