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I looked into her tear-filled eyes. I knew better than to make promises, but I held her gaze and said, “I’ll do everything in my power to find her.”
She continued to study me but must have accepted my answer because she finally nodded and broke our gaze. “Thank you.”
I nodded back in acknowledgment then bent down to climb through. “Have you ever seen Ava open the window?”
“No.”
I stepped through, then stood upright, taking it all in. The porch was completely empty, not even any furniture positioned for decorative purposes. Then again, it looked like the windows were the only way to access it and they weren’t exactly wide enough to fit a rocking chair or wicker settee through. It still looked like the kind of place a kid might go to get away from her domineering father. Other than the open window, though, there were no signs that she’d ever been out here.
So maybe she didn’t hang out here. Maybe she’d used it as an exit.
Curious to see how close the branches were to the porch, I walked toward the railing.
“Does Ava like to climb trees?” A large branch from the oak tree was close enough that a twelve-year-old could make the leap, but there was a two-foot gap from the thick branch and the railing, which meant she’d have to be a dare devil to attempt it. “Does she like to take chances? Would she have dared to get up on the porch railing and leap for the tree?”
“Oh, no,” she said emphatically. “No way. She’s terrified of heights. She won’t even climb up a ladder.”
“What about any of her friends?”
“Her friends?” she asked in confusion.
“Are any of them climbers or dare devils? Maybe someone convinced her to make the jump.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Maybe Casey. She’s a bit of a tomboy. I doubt it would be Ainsley.”
“Does she like boys? Or girls? Anyone she’s interested in romantically?” I asked as I looked over the yard. With the six-foot-deep porch and the massive tree in the front, it would be hard for someone to look through Ava’s windows. Hard, but not impossible.
“What?” she said in disbelief. “She’s only twelve.”
“Nessi, you and Andi were both boy crazy at twelve,” I reminded her.
“I suppose,” she said thoughtfully. “But Ava’s different. More serious. I’ve never seen any signs of her being interested in boys or girls like that.”
Parents often didn’t know everything going on in their children’s lives, especially teenagers, or in this case, a preteen. If Ava had a crush on a boy—or girl—she might keep it from her mother to make sure her overprotective father didn’t find out. Especially if her father disapproved of her crush’s gender.
“And how would TJ feel if Ava liked girls?”
Her face went slack. “He wouldn’t like it.” Her gaze lifted to mine, panic on her face. “But surely she wouldn’t run away if she liked another girl.”
I didn’t answer. She seemed a little young to have run away from home for a romantic reason, but I wasn’t ruling anything out.
“What grade is she in? Sixth?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a big school?”
“It’s Jackson Creek Elementary,” she said. “It’s pretty much the same as when we went there. Mrs. Donahue is her teacher. She changes classrooms for most of her subjects. They’re getting them ready for junior high.”
“No middle school?”
“No, it’s like when we were kids. Kindergarten through sixth here in Jackson Creek. Seventh and eighth at the junior high in Wolford, then the high school.”
When we were kids, Jackson Creek had been large enough for its own elementary school, but junior high students were bussed to Wolford which was fifteen miles away.
“Do you have a school directory with everyone’s names and phone numbers and addresses?”
“Downstairs in my office off the kitchen. It’s the mudroom, but I have a desk there.”
