NORA
THERE WAS AN AWKWARD beat of silence while the whole room watched Walker regard Bennet. His face was blank, impassive as he looked between his wife and the newcomer, this stranger with a slightly thickening middle and generic good looks. Bennet was neat and clean shaven, immaculate compared to Walker’s ripped jeans, wrinkled T-shirt, and five o’clock shadow. Walker’s rowdy hair was escaping the short, sloppy ponytail he had pulled it into at the back of his head, and the wiry curls were little exclamation marks around his smooth forehead. The two men couldn’t possibly be more different.
But in the second before things got downright uncomfortable, Quinn reached for Walker and slid two fingers through the belt loop of his sagging jeans. Her touch was possessive, unmistakable, and the strange hush in the room evaporated.
“What can I do to help?” Bennet asked.
“What do you know?” Nora spun on him, wary at the sudden appearance of a cop and yet grateful for the authority in his tone.
“Not much.” Bennet took a small step back and put his hands on his hips. “I take it we’ve got a missing girl.”
“She’s not exactly missing,” Walker reminded everyone. “She’s with her mother.”
“And a man,” Liz cut in. “But he’s not her father.”
Nora wasn’t ready to go there yet. “We think she’s in danger,” she said before her mother could proclaim JJ the father and complicate things further.
“What kind of danger?”
Nora hesitated. It was the point of no return. If she admitted what she knew, Everlee would likely be taken away from Tiffany. And hadn’t she spent the past seven years of her life doing everything in her power to prevent exactly that? Nora had given up so much to fight for Tiff and Everlee, to give them a chance at a life together. Even when Tiffany screwed up, when she failed, when they both struggled to make it work, Nora had believed in their little family. In the hope that everyone deserved a chance to be the person they were always meant to be. What if everything she had fought for fell apart?
Another thought struck her: If Everlee was removed from Tiffany’s custody, where would she go? JJ knew nothing about his daughter. And Nora had no idea if he would deny everything and refuse contact or if he would embrace this unexpected development with open arms. No, Nora knew her brother. There would be no open arms. There would be nowhere for Everlee to land.
“They should have run away.” Nora didn’t realize she had said it out loud until Bennet pushed her.
“What do you mean?”
Nora had nothing to lose. “We had a plan,” she said, picking at the hem of her shirt as she blinked back tears. “They were going to get out together. Start over.”
Ethan’s hand found the small of her back. He pressed gently. “It’s not over yet,” he whispered.
“Why?” Bennet asked. “Why would Tiffany need to run?”
“Her boyfriend is not a good man.”
“I’m going to need more than that, Nora.”
She faltered. “Drugs,” she said. “Distribution. He’s been charged before, but the allegations didn’t stick.”
“And?”
“The sexual abuse of a minor.”
All the air went out of the room.
“And you feel certain she’s in danger?” Bennet demanded.
“Absolutely. I’ll testify. I’ve seen . . . things.”
Something snapped in Bennet. “I need names, last known address, and any aliases. Nora, come with me. The rest of you, I want you to compile a description of the child and her mother. Do you have any recent photographs?”
Nora nodded, grabbing her own phone as she followed Bennet toward the front door.
But Liz stopped them. “Wait! I can tell you the license plate of the car he was driving if it would be helpful.”
Bennet froze. “You memorized the license plate?”
“Of course.” Liz looked affronted. “It’s only six characters. It’s not that hard to remember.”
“Yes,” Bennet said, and in spite of the situation, Nora could see that he had to bite back a grin, “that would be very helpful.”
While her mother rattled off the letters and numbers, Nora went to stand in the yard. She needed air, space, and she wanted to go through her pictures alone. Nora flipped through her camera roll to find all the photos she could of Tiffany and Everlee. She had saved some old favorites, one of the three of them at a lake beach when Everlee was just two years old. Her legs were little sausages, rolls of skin between wrinkles that were so deep it looked as if someone had snapped rubber bands on her ankles and around her knees. She was breathtaking.
There was another picture of just Tiff and Everlee, sitting on the top step of the farmhouse porch, a litter of new kittens crawling in and around their laps. Another was slightly blurry, a still life of them spread on the couch watching something on TV. And here they were at the park. But the picture that Nora settled on had been taken only a week ago. She and Tiffany had just picked up the fake driver’s license and the new birth certificates that transformed Nora’s best friend and beloved niece into strangers. Miranda and Lucy Smith. There were over eighty-one million hits for Miranda Smith on Google. They had looked. Miranda Smith was every color, shape, and size. She lived in every state and every Canadian province. She was everyone. And no one.
“How will you ever find us?” Tiffany had said when they first hatched their plan, talking late into the night while Everlee was asleep and Donovan was at the bar.
“It’ll take some time. You’ll have to give me hints.” Nora smiled. “It’ll be like a game. Where do you want to go?”
“Washington,” Tiff said dreamily. “I want to live in the shadow of a mountain. Or New York. Like Sex and the City.”
“Except you have a little girl and aren’t a freewheeling bachelorette,” Nora reminded her. “Anywhere else?”
Tiff shook her head. “Arizona? Detroit, maybe? Anywhere but here.”
When Nora snapped her last photo of Tiffany and Everlee, Tiff was clutching the manila envelope that contained their hopes for a new life. It was innocuous enough in the picture, just a big square of brown paper held shut with a brass clasp. But the look in Tiffany’s eyes was transcendent, luminous with wishes that seemed to reach right out of Nora’s iPhone screen and grab her by the throat. You did this to me, Tiffany seemed to say. You made me believe. Thank you. And Everlee, safe in the circle of her mother’s arms, was looking up at Tiffany, smiling so big her eyes were all but winked closed.
“I’ve put out an APB for the license plate your mom gave me,” Bennet said, joining Nora outside. He gave his head a little, admiring shake. “Props to Elizabeth Sanford for that one.”
“Yeah, she’s something all right.”
“She is, Nora.” Bennet gave her a sideways look. “Always has been. She’s a strong lady; you’re lucky to have her.”
Nora wasn’t sure what to say.
“What now?” Ethan came to stand beside Nora. “Do we wait?”
“No, let’s go,” Bennet said. “I don’t have my cruiser and I’m not officially on duty, but we can drive around. Check out a few spots you think Tiffany might turn up at.”
“Her grandparents’ place?” Nora suggested.
“I was thinking of that, too.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Quinn had come to stand in the doorway, her eyes shielded from the sun with a slender hand. “You can’t expect us to just sit around and wait.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” Bennet said. “Write up those profiles and then stay put. What if they come back? What if she calls or texts?”
“Her phone!” Nora didn’t mean to shout, but she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t realized it sooner.
Ethan caught on instantly. “Donovan had her phone,” he said. “He had her. But how did Donovan know that she was in Key Lake? How did he find her?”
The truth clicked into place. “She found him.” It was so obvious it hurt. “She called him. She had to. How else would he have known where she was hiding?”
“I don’t know,” Bennet said, “but if we’re lucky we’ll get the chance to ask her. Nora, I want you to text her. Call her. See if she answers.”
“I can do better than that. We installed friend trackers on our phones. I’m sure it’s how Donovan found us at Malcolm’s. My phone must have pinged in the location.”
Nora’s fingers shook a little as she tapped into the app. But Tiffany’s icon was still dark.
“No problem,” Bennet said. “Try calling.”
Tiffany’s name was right at the top of Nora’s call history, the photo next to her information as familiar as Nora’s own reflection in the mirror. She held her breath as she hit Call.
It rang. Once, twice, a half-dozen times. It rang and rang, but it didn’t go directly to voicemail. In fact, it didn’t go to voicemail at all—even after Nora let it ring for thirty seconds, more.
“It’s on, but she’s not answering.”
“Maybe she can’t,” Liz said.
The thought filled Nora with a blind horror.
“Okay,” Bennet said, stepping into the fray before Nora could completely lose her mind. “Let’s go. You can keep trying. In the meantime, I’m sure someone will pick them up, thanks to Mrs. Sanford.”
Liz made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat.
“Unless they’ve changed the plates,” Nora said. That was another thing they had included in the envelope—a set of license plates so Tiffany could change hers before she traded in the car she was driving for a new one. They had thought of everything, or at least tried to. New papers, a little cash, a forged recommendation letter from a nonexistent landlord.
“That’ll make it harder,” Bennet agreed. “But I’m hopeful. We’ll pick them up soon. They couldn’t have gotten too far.”
But Nora worried that they wouldn’t have to go far to achieve Donovan’s purpose. She hadn’t even told Bennet about Tiffany’s inheritance, the will. The money that Tiff had taken from Donovan and the way that she knew he would never let her go—would never let either of them go—without a fight. She almost said something, almost told Bennet that there was even more to the story than she had already shared, but tucked deep in her pocket, her cell phone buzzed with an incoming text.