Her father, Derek, blamed me.
“You interrogate her,” he once said.
“I ask questions.”
“You ask questions like a detective who already knows the suspect is guilty.”
That was Derek.
My ex-husband had the emotional instincts of a golden retriever and the planning skills of a man who routinely forgot where he parked.
We divorced six years earlier.
There had been no affair, no dramatic betrayal, no screaming match involving broken dishes.
We simply exhausted each other.
I wanted calendars, routines, appointments, plans.
Derek believed most problems could be solved with pizza and “seeing how everyone feels tomorrow.”
We were better divorced than married.
Usually.
But when it came to Ava, I carried most of the structure.
School forms.
Dentist appointments.
Parent conferences.
Deadlines.
Derek was the parent who remembered that Ava hated onions on burgers and would drive across town at ten at night because she mentioned wanting milkshakes.
She adored him.
I understood why.
Still, I never imagined either of them could keep something like this from me.
The afternoon after the school called, I waited.
I didn't text Ava.
I didn't call Derek.
I didn't alert anyone.
At 3:47 p.m., the front door opened.
“Mom?”
“In the kitchen.”
Ava walked in wearing a gray sweatshirt three sizes too big, black leggings, and the white sneakers I had bought her two months earlier.
Her backpack hung from one shoulder.
She looked completely normal.
That was somehow worse.
I forced myself to continue slicing vegetables.
“How was school?”
“Okay.”
My knife stopped against the cutting board.
“What did you do?”
She opened the refrigerator.
“School stuff.”
“Very specific.”
She glanced at me.
“Why are you being weird?”
“I’m making conversation.”
“You’re doing the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The mom voice where you already know something and you’re waiting for me to confess.”
For one terrifying second, I wondered if she knew.
Then she grabbed a can of soda.
“We had this stupid presentation in science,” she said. “And Mr. Hammond assigned a bunch of homework.”
Science.
Presentation.
Homework.
All lies.
She hadn't even entered the building.
I looked at my daughter and felt something I had never expected to feel around her.
Suspicion.
“Who did you eat lunch with?”
Her hand froze around the soda.
It lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
“People.”
“What people?”
“Mom.”
“I'm asking.”
“And I answered.”
“You said ‘people.’”
She shoved the refrigerator door closed harder than necessary.
“Why does everything have to turn into twenty questions with you?”
“Ava—”
“I’m going upstairs.”
She walked away.
I nearly stopped her.
Nearly told her the school had called.
Nearly demanded the truth right there.
But something held me back.
Fear, mostly.
Because Ava wasn't a reckless kid.
If she had suddenly started skipping school, there was a reason.
And if I confronted her before I understood that reason, she might simply invent a better lie.
So I made a decision that would have horrified the version of me from twenty-four hours earlier.
I was going to follow my daughter.
The next morning, I acted completely normal.
I made eggs.
Ava barely touched them.
She kept checking her phone beneath the table.
At 7:16, she slung her backpack over her shoulder.
“Bye.”
“Have a good day.”
“You too.”
She walked down the driveway.
I waited until she disappeared around the corner.
Then I grabbed my keys.
My heart was already pounding.
I drove two blocks and parked where I could see the bus stop without being obvious.
At 7:24, Ava boarded the yellow school bus with six other kids.
For a moment, embarrassment washed over me.
Maybe this was some enormous administrative mistake.
Maybe I was following my completely innocent daughter like a lunatic.
Then the bus reached Westbrook High.
Students poured onto the sidewalk.
Ava stepped down with them.
I watched from across the street.
The crowd moved toward the entrance.
Ava didn't.
She walked in the opposite direction.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
She stopped near a row of maple trees beside the student parking lot.
Then she looked at her phone.
Thirty seconds later, a dark green Chevrolet pickup pulled up beside her.
The truck looked ancient.
One headlight was cloudy. The bumper was dented. Rust streaked the rear wheel well.
Ava hurried toward it.
The passenger door opened.
She climbed inside.
My entire body went cold.
I couldn't see the driver.
All I could see was my fifteen-year-old daughter willingly getting into an unfamiliar truck during school hours.
I grabbed my phone.
My thumb hovered over the emergency call button.
Then Ava leaned toward the driver.
She was smiling.
Not nervous.
Not frightened.
Comfortable.
The truck pulled away.
I followed.
We drove for almost twenty minutes.
Every terrible possibility ran through my head.
An older boyfriend.
Drugs.
Someone she met online.
A secret group of friends.
Something worse.
The truck eventually turned onto a road leading toward Lake Harrison, a recreation area several miles outside town.
My fear slowly transformed into anger.
Whoever was driving that truck was helping my child disappear from school.
When the truck entered a nearly empty parking lot beside the lake, I followed it in.
I parked three rows away.
The driver's door opened.
