“Mr. Price,” he said, “I need you to drive away.”
“No.”
His eyes hardened. “Your daughter needs to leave this property now.”
“Where’s Claire?”
“Drive away.”
“Where is Warren?”
Ava whispered from the back, “Daddy?”
I lowered my voice. “Sheriff, you don’t get to stand there after telling me not to let my child out of the car and then give me nothing.”
Harker looked past me at Ava. His expression softened for less than a second.
Then he leaned closer.
“Your daughter was not supposed to come home from this visit.”
The street seemed to tilt.
My left hand went numb around the steering wheel.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you need to take her somewhere safe. Not your apartment. Not anywhere your ex-wife knows as a first guess. I will call you in one hour.”
I wanted to grab him by the collar. I wanted to force every answer out of him right there in Warren Bellamy’s perfect driveway.
Instead, I looked in the rearview mirror.
Ava’s eyes were huge.
So I nodded.
The engine started cleanly, almost obscenely. No cough. No hesitation. The lie was over.
As I backed out, Ava lifted one small hand and waved at the officers because she had been taught to be polite.
Nobody waved back.
I drove three blocks before I realized I was holding my breath.
“Daddy,” she said, very quietly, “am I still going to get waffles?”
I pulled into the parking lot of a closed garden center, put the car in park, and reached back for her hand.
“No, bug,” I said. “Not today.”
She squeezed my fingers.
On my phone, the unknown number sent one more message.
Tell no one where you are going.
I looked at those words and felt the first clean edge of terror slide under my skin.
Because only a few people knew about our Saturday drop-off.
And one of them was Ava’s mother.
### Part 3
I took Ava to a diner twelve miles away, the kind with chrome stools, cracked red vinyl booths, and a waitress who called everyone honey without looking up from the coffee pot.
Ava ordered silver-dollar pancakes with blueberries. I ordered coffee I never drank.
Every time the bell over the door jingled, I looked up too fast.
Ava colored a paper placemat. She drew Captain Toast with wings, then drew me beside him with giant square shoulders and a smile I did not deserve.
“Why are you watching everybody?” she asked.
“I’m just tired.”
“You look like when you forgot the oven was on.”
“That was one time.”
“It smelled bad.”
“It did.”
She smiled, and the normalness of it almost ruined me.
At 10:46, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I stepped outside where I could see Ava through the window.
“This is Nolan Price.”
“Are you alone?” Sheriff Harker asked.
“My daughter’s inside. I can see her.”
“Can you take her to someone you trust? Someone not connected to Claire or Warren?”
“My friend Mason. He and his wife live in Glen Park.”
“Take her there. Then come to the county station. Alone.”
“What happened in that house?”
A pause.
“Mr. Price, not on the phone.”
“I’m done being handled.”
“You’re a father. Be that first. Be angry after she is safe.”
I hated him for being right.
Mason Rudd opened his front door twenty minutes later wearing sweatpants, a Northwestern hoodie, and the confused face of a man whose Saturday had just been ambushed. His wife, Talia, appeared behind him with flour on her cheek.
“Nolan?” Mason said.
“I need Ava to stay here for a few hours.”
He looked past me at my daughter, then back at my face.
His confusion vanished.
“Of course.”
Ava ran inside when Talia mentioned cinnamon rolls. I crouched in the doorway and kissed her hair.
“Be good for Mason and Talia.”
“Are you coming back soon?”
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
The word hit me hard.
“I promise.”
Mason followed me to the porch.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know all of it yet.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I know.”
He gripped my shoulder. “Tell me what to do.”
“Don’t post anything. Don’t answer questions. Don’t let anyone pick her up unless it’s me. Not Claire. Not Warren. Not anybody.”
His face went pale.
“Nolan.”
“I’ll explain when I can.”
The county station sat beside a courthouse and an auto parts store, all brick and flagpoles and sun glare. Inside, a deputy led me to a conference room where Harker waited with a state detective named Simone Reyes.
She was maybe forty, with a sharp bob, tired eyes, and a folder thick enough to ruin lives.
“Mr. Price,” she said, “I’m sorry we had to bring you in this way.”
“Where is Claire?”
Neither of them answered fast enough.
“Where is my ex-wife?”
Reyes opened the folder.
“Claire Bellamy Price and Warren Bellamy were taken into custody this morning.”
The room went quiet except for the hum of the fluorescent light.
“For what?”
Harker leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“Conspiracy. Financial crimes. Obstruction. And a planned offense involving your daughter.”
My stomach turned.
“Planned offense?”
Reyes slid a photograph across the table.
It showed a gray van parked beside a warehouse. Ordinary. Dirty. Forgettable.
I pushed it back.
“No. Say it plainly.”
Reyes looked me in the eye.
“We believe Warren arranged for Ava to disappear from his home today. The public version would have been a stranger abduction. The real plan was that she would never be found alive.”
For a second, I heard nothing.
Not the light. Not the hallway. Not my own breathing.
Then my chair scraped backward and I was standing, though I did not remember standing.
“Claire knew?”