Chapter 8
Finding Ava became the only thing that mattered.
The mansion, the headlines, the ruined party, even Isabella’s escape all blurred into one question.
Where was William’s daughter?
Where was Ethan’s sister?
Where was the baby Caroline had fought to protect with her last breath?
Agent Chen moved the case to a federal task force.
Records from the fake foundation were seized.
Old adoption files were pulled from storage.
Judges signed emergency orders.
Names surfaced.
Some real.
Some invented.
Some dead.
Ava had been moved three times in nine years.
That was the first horror.
Not one illegal placement.
Three.
The last file listed her as Grace Miller, adopted by a couple in Albany.
When agents arrived, the house was empty.
A neighbor said the family had left two days earlier.
A security camera showed a dark SUV.
The driver wore a baseball cap.
But the woman in the passenger seat removed her sunglasses for half a second.
Isabella.
William watched the footage in silence.
Ethan stood beside him, pale but steady.
“She has my sister?”
William knelt in front of him.
“We are going to find her.”
“Before she puts her behind a wall?”
William closed his eyes.
I saw the sentence cut him.
“No one is going behind a wall again.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You found me.”
“I did.”
“Find Ava.”
It was not a request.
It was faith.
And faith is heavy when a child hands it to you with shaking hands.
We followed the smallest clue.
Ava’s adoptive mother had filled a prescription at a pharmacy near Albany.
The receipt had a loyalty number.
That number showed another purchase two hours after they vanished.
Children’s motion sickness medicine.
A road atlas.
Granola bars.
A disposable phone.
At a gas station northbound.
Isabella was moving them toward Canada.
Police issued alerts.
William offered a reward.
Reporters finally turned their hunger toward Isabella instead of me.
But I did not care.
I sat with Ethan in the command room and studied every image of Ava we could find.
She had Caroline’s eyes.
William’s chin.
Ethan’s serious little frown.
“She looks like me,” Ethan whispered.
“She does.”
“Do you think she knows?”
“That she has you?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know.”
He swallowed.
“Then she must feel alone.”
The room went quiet.
William heard him from across the table.
He walked over and placed a hand on Ethan’s shoulder.
“Not for much longer.”
That night, my mother brought food to the mansion because she said grief and fear were rude guests that stayed longer if you fed them badly.
She fed everyone.
Federal agents.
Security guards.
William.
Ethan.
Me.
At midnight, a call came through.
A state trooper in Vermont had found the SUV abandoned near a closed summer camp.
There were three sets of footprints in the mud.
Two adult.
One child.
William stood so fast his chair tipped over.
“I’m going.”
Agent Chen blocked him.
“You are too recognizable.”
“My daughter is out there.”
“And Isabella wants you desperate.”
He looked ready to push past her.
I stepped between them.
“Let me go.”
William stared.
“No.”
“She won’t expect me.”
“She framed you yesterday.”
“And failed.”
“She could kill you.”
“She could kill Ava.”
His face twisted.
Ethan appeared at the doorway.
“Daddy.”
William turned.
Ethan held out Caroline’s locket.
“Mom picked Emma.”
No one spoke.
He walked to me and placed the locket in my hand.
“She found the door. Maybe she can find Ava.”
William looked at his son.
Then at me.
His eyes were full of fear.
Not doubt.
Fear.
“Come back,” he said.
“I will.”
Luca drove.
Agent Chen sat in front.
I sat in the back with Caroline’s locket wrapped in my fist.
We reached the old camp before dawn.
Fog lay over the cabins.
Police lights flashed silently through the trees.
A trooper pointed toward the woods.
“They went toward the lake.”
My stomach tightened.
The lake.
Cold.
Dark.
Remote.
We moved in a line with flashlights low.
Then I heard it.
Not crying this time.
Singing.
A thin child’s voice humming a lullaby.
I knew it.
Ethan had sung it after nightmares.
Caroline’s lullaby.
I followed the sound off the trail.
Past a broken fence.
Down toward an old boathouse.
A girl sat inside on the floor, wrapped in a coat too large for her.
Beside her stood Isabella holding a phone in one hand and a small revolver in the other.
My blood froze.
Ava looked up.
Her eyes were Caroline’s.
“Are you Emma?” she whispered.
Isabella smiled.
“Perfect. The servant who opened every door.”
Agent Chen raised her weapon.
“Drop it, Isabella.”
Isabella pressed the gun closer to her own side, not Ava’s.
Strange.
Desperate.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I was owed this family.”
“No,” I said. “You stole it.”
Ava trembled.
I stepped slowly forward.
“Ava, your father is waiting.”
Her lips parted.
“My father?”
Isabella screamed, “He didn’t even know you existed!”
Ava flinched.
I held up the locket.
“Your mother made sure he could find out.”
Isabella stared at it.
And in that second, Ava ran.
Agent Chen moved.
Luca moved.
Isabella lifted the gun.
A shot cracked through the boathouse roof.
Wood splintered.
Ava slammed into my arms.
I fell backward with her, covering her with my body.
Police rushed in.
Isabella fought like rage had replaced reason.
Then the cuffs closed.
It was over.
Ava sobbed against me.
“Is William Sterling really my dad?”
I held her tight.
“Yes.”
She whispered, “Will he want me?”
May you like
My heart broke open.
“He has been looking for you since the moment he knew you existed.”
