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“What time did you go in to wake her up?”
“About five-fifty. We looked around the house, then we looked outside.”
I frowned. “Do you typically wake Ava up before six?”
“Not most days, but she has choir practice before school on Tuesday mornings. She has to be there at seven, and it was our turn to get donuts.”
“Does she like singing in the choir?”
She squinted at me. “Why would you ask that?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to go to practice, and she snuck out so she wouldn’t have to go.”
“Oh no,” she said insistently, shaking her head. “Ava wouldn’t do that. She’s too responsible.”
“She’s also twelve, correct?” I asked. When she nodded, I added, “No matter how responsible she is, she’s still twelve, stuck between being a little girl and a more mature one. Twelve-year-olds are allowed moments of irresponsibility.”
Her lips thinned. “Not with TJ. He has expectations.”
The likelihood of Ava running away just jumped higher on my likely scenario list.
“Did you or TJ look at the alarm system? Any chance it was deactivated and turned back on sometime before he turned it off this morning?”
She twisted her necklace tighter. “He looked. It hadn’t been turned off.”
She was anxious, but was she anxious because she was worried about her daughter or because I was asking a lot of questions?
“Do the police think she went out the window?” I asked.
Vanessa turned to the coffee machine and opened a cabinet above it, pulling out a white mug. “They’re not sure. They say there’s an hour gap between the last time I saw her at nine and when TJ turned the alarm on at ten. They think she could have left then.”
“Are the windows connected to the security system?”
“No.”
“What about cameras?” I asked. “Do you have a Ring doorbell or any other surveillance cameras?”
“We have a doorbell camera, but it hasn’t been working for about a month.”
“What about the neighbors?” I asked. “Do any of them have cameras?”
She shook her head, starting to get upset. “I don’t know. Most are older and don’t like technology.”
“That’s okay,” I assured her. “Did the police ask around?”
“No,” she said, wiping another tear. “They’re having some officers check with her friends.”
“You didn’t already do that?” I asked in surprise.
“We did, but they said the parents or kids might be more forthcoming with uniformed officers.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, but in case it was an abduction, they needed to canvass the neighborhood. Time was of the essence.
They’d failed to do that with my sister too.
“Tell me about Ava. Is she a good student?”
She nodded as she set the mug under a nozzle on the machine. “Straight As.” She turned her head to face me with a soft smile. “Obviously, she takes after her father, not her mother.”
