I hated that answer because it made too much sense.
For the first time in months, I knew.
Ava looked at me then, really looked at me, like she was scared I might break apart in front of her.
Instead, I reached over and held her face in both hands.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Whatever we find out next, you are still my daughter. Nothing touches that. Nothing.”
She nodded once and covered my hands with hers.
Then she asked, “What do we do?”
For the first time in months, I knew.
That night, Ava and I packed one bag.
I looked at the letter. Then at the officers.
“We go to Marina Vale.”
One of them said, “We can arrange an escort in the morning.”
That night, Ava and I packed one bag.
I was so tired I had to sit down twice just folding clothes, but adrenaline will do strange things to a sick body.
At one point I looked over and saw Ava carefully placing the wig she made me on top of my things so it would not get crushed.
“We may not like what we find tomorrow.”
I said, “After today, you’re still worried about my wig?”
She gave me a weak smile. “Obviously.”
I sat beside her on the bed.
“We may not like what we find tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“We may find out your father made choices I don’t understand.”
I barely slept.
“I know.”
“But we go together.”
That got the first real expression out of her since the office. She leaned into my shoulder and whispered, “Always.”
I barely slept.
Somewhere close to dawn, I realized that for the first time in a year, the thing beating hardest in me was not fear.
It was hope.
Someone had already knocked on Rosa’s door before sunrise.
By morning, we would be driving to a blue house near a church. To a woman who might know why Daniel vanished. To answers tied to Ava, to me, and to the life I thought had been buried fifteen years ago.
And what I did not know yet was this:
Someone had already knocked on Rosa’s door before sunrise.
And she had let him in.
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