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“I need to speak with you about Dawn and Ava Williams.”
He stared at me for a moment, then glanced at his watch.
“Dooley’s Bar is down the street. I’ll meet you there in about fifteen minutes, and we can talk.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lafferty.”
“Call me John.”
I climbed into my car and drove to Dooley’s. When I stepped inside, I grabbed a small table in the corner of the bar.
“Hey, handsome.” A perky server with long blonde hair walked over. “What can I get you?”
“Double scotch, no ice.”
“Coming right up.”
I sipped my drink while I waited for John to show up. The bar door opened, and he stepped inside and looked around until he saw me. Walking over to the table, he took the seat across from me.
“Hey, John. The usual?” the server asked.
“Yeah. Thanks, Lorraine.” He smiled at her. “So, what’s this about, Dr. Kind?”
“Please, call me Grayson. I need to know about that night you found Ava locked in that basement.”
“Are you her shrink or something?” he asked.
“No. I’m just someone who cares about her very much.”
“I’ve always regretted my bad decisions back then, but dating her mother wasn’t one of them. I’m not sure that child would be alive if I hadn’t. She always kept the basement door locked, and when I asked her why she did that, she said the people she was renting the house from kept it locked because they had some of their stuff down there. I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and could have sworn I heard noises coming through the bathroom vent. I chalked it up to the fact that I was high and hearing things. One night after work, I went over to the house for dinner. Dawn was in the middle of cooking when she realized she didn’t have a couple of ingredients she thought she had. I’d had a long day, and the last thing I wanted to do was go back out to the store, so Dawn grabbed a beer from the fridge, handed it to me, and told me to sit on the couch and relax. Normally, I would turn on the TV, but that night, I had a headache and just wanted to sit quietly until she got back. That’s when I heard that noise in the basement again.”
“What type of noise was it?” I asked.
“It was like a squeaking noise. I figured it was rats or something, and if that was the case, Dawn had to notify the owners of the house. I went out to my truck, grabbed a pair of cutters from my toolbox, and cut the lock. When I opened the door, I could see a small light, almost like a nightlight. When I walked down the stairs and flipped the light switch, I saw the cage. It took my eyes a few seconds to process that a child was locked in there. I ran over to it, cut the lock with the cutters, and held my hand out to Ava.” He slowly shook his head. “I’d never seen anything like it before. The way that child looked has haunted my dreams ever since. She immediately came to me, and I carried her up the stairs and put her in my truck. I needed to get her out of there before Dawn returned. Just as I was pulling away, Dawn pulled up and began honking her horn. I just kept going and headed straight to the emergency room. I called 911, told them what I’d found, and gave them Dawn’s address.”
“She never told you she had a child?”
“No. In fact, she told me she never wanted kids. How is Ava? She looked good the last time I saw her.”
“You saw her?” My brows furrowed.
“Yeah. She came to the shop about three years ago and thanked me for saving her.”
I pulled up a picture on my phone that she’d taken of us on the yacht and sent to me.
“Was this her?”
“Looks like her, but she had long auburn colored hair when I saw her last. We talked briefly, and she seemed to be doing well. She told me she was an artist and sold paintings at an art gallery.”
“I’m assuming you had to testify against Dawn,” I said.
“I did. I always knew she was a little strange, but I never imagined she could have done what she did. Anyway, after that, I cleaned myself up, found God, got my life in order, met the love of my life, opened up my shop, got married, and had a son.”
“Thank you, John, for speaking to me. I know it can’t be easy reliving that night.”
“It’s not, Grayson, but I do thank God every day that I was there to save that child. There’s something I don’t understand. Why did you have to come to me about that night? If you and Ava are close, wouldn’t she have told you herself?”
“She can’t because she doesn’t remember.”
