Chapter 23

TWENTY-THREE

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Sunday, September 22

12:54 p.m.

"You're not in any trouble, Ava." Detective Moore took her seat along one side of the conference room table as Leigh closed the door to provide some semblance of privacy. "We just want to ask you some questions about your relationship with Saige Fuentes and Ruby Davis."

"You don't have to answer anything if you don't want." Wesley Portman hovered on the edge of the room, preventing his daughter from taking a seat. "We can leave right now. You just have to say the word. You don't owe these people anything."

"A girl's life is at stake, Mr. Portman; another one is dead." Leigh had spent years honing her patience into an art, but there were some things she just couldn't let slip through the cracks. And as much as she wanted to blunt the truth when it came to Detective Moore and the brutal murder of her niece, they worked in fact. "Would you have the same response if Ava was one of them?"

Ava slipped into a seat with her father's hand clenched on the back, a perfect clone of her mother. There was a difference in the length of their hair. Elyse preferred to wear hers shorter. Less work, she'd claimed, while Ava had let her hair grow well into the crook of her elbows. Ava, too, was much thinner than her mother. A natural birthmark above her lip interrupted fair, unblemished skin. How the girl had managed to get through her teenaged years without a zit was beyond unfair. Her voice set her apart from Elyse in a whole new way as well. Timid. Unreachable almost. "What do you want to know?"

Wesley Portman sank into his own chair. Defeated, yet supportive, Leigh supposed. He'd taken the time to shower and dress for this meeting. Presumably in a hotel room he'd checked into after that first night of sleeping in his SUV. But where was Ava staying?

"How long have you known Ruby Davis?" Detective Moore asked.

Leigh would give the detective marks for keeping her voice even on her niece's name.

"I don't. Not really." Ava buried her hands in her lap and stared down at the table. "She was friends with Saige. I only met her last year when we used Saige's mom's keycard to get into the hotel pool a couple times in the middle of the night, but we didn't keep in touch when I went back home. We follow… We used to follow each other on social media. I can't believe she's dead."

Used to. Because Ruby was dead now or because Ava had shut down her social media accounts?

"Me neither." Detective Moore tried for a smile. "And what about Saige? How long have you known her?"

"Longer. A couple years," Ava said. "I was at that ice cream place by the shore. Matt's. I'd gotten my cone and turned around. I accidentally spilled it all over her. She could've yelled at me, but she didn't. Told me not to worry about it and that she and her friend were on the way to the beach. They invited me to come along. I was with my mom. She let me go as long as I promised to be home by six that night."

"Do you remember the friend's name? The one who was with Saige at the ice cream shop?" Leigh wasn't sure what good it would do, but the more connections they could establish between the girls, the higher chance they had of recovering Saige. Before it was too late.

"Poppy. She…" Ava took a deep breath. "Saige told me she died last year. I'd only met her a couple times."

Leigh wasn't familiar with that name. "Does Poppy have a last name?"

"Poppy Slater. Disappeared last summer. The detective who worked the case concluded she'd run away from home with a boyfriend her parents didn't approve of. Her body was pulled from the marsh a week after she went missing. She was fourteen years old at the time. The case is still open. No leads." Detective Moore slipped the photo taken from Saige Fuentes's room across the table, and Leigh focused everything she had into reading the girl's reaction. In her expression, in her body language. "Was this one of those times you'd met her, Ava?"

"Is that vodka?" Wesley Portman's voice doubled in volume as he snatched the photo from the table. "What the hell is this? Were you drinking with those girls, Ava? Alcohol isn't?—"

"Mr. Portman, if you could please let us ask the questions. You are strictly here to give us permission to interview Ava because she's a minor. Nothing more." Detective Moore turned her attention back to Ava. "I'm not here about the alcohol. You were with your friends. You were having a good time. What I'm interested in who purchased it for you. Was it the man in the photo?"

Ava's gaze cut to the picture in her father's hand. Then back. No answer.

But, in Leigh's experience, sometimes no answer was answer in and of itself. "Who is he? Had you met him before?"

Still, the girl disconnected. Terrified of giving an answer. Looking for a way out of the room in one piece.

Frustration built in her father. "Ava Marie Portman, answer them, or so help me, you'll lose your phone for a week. Who is he?"

"I don't know his name," Ava said. "He was just kind of… there. Poppy said he could score us some alcohol. I thought it was her dad, but the more we drank the weirder he got. Touchy. There was music and everyone started dancing. I've never had alcohol before, and I started getting sick and dizzy. I asked Saige to take me home, but she'd been drinking too. So I went to lock myself in the bathroom to call my mom, but I got mixed up, and I accidentally walked in on them. Together."

Everyone in the room stilled.

Leigh was the one to break the silence. "Walked in on who?"

"That guy and Poppy. They were…" Ava's face paled, impossibly so. "They were on one of the beds, but Poppy wasn't moving. She didn't say anything when I opened the door. I think… she'd passed out."

The weight of that single statement iced through Leigh's veins.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Wesley Portman grabbed for his daughter, holding her face between both his hands. "Why didn't you tell your mom? We would've helped."

Tears slathered Ava's voice in a thick coating. "I didn't want you to get mad at me for drinking, and I had no idea where we were. I was scared. I tried to get Saige and Ruby to leave with me, but they wanted to stay. I got out of there as fast as I could and called a ride-share to take me home. It's my mom's account. She said I could use it in an emergency."

"You've been keeping this to yourself?" Wesley Portman turned on his daughter. "Did you even call the police? How long were you going to?—"

"Mr. Portman, please." Detective Moore flipped to a new page in her notebook and started writing. From the sound of it, Ruby hadn't told her aunt the truth of that night either. "When was this?"

"Last summer. Just before…" Ava's neck convulsed with a deep swallow. "Just before Poppy went missing, I think."

Leigh leaned forward in her seat. "Ava, were you aware Ruby Davis's body was found yesterday morning? And that Saige Fuentes has been reported missing?"

Fear stuck hard and fast. Ava shook her head, as though trying to make sense of the past and the present at the same time. "That's not possible. I just talked to Saige a few days ago."

Leigh didn't miss the lack of reaction about Ruby Davis. It was possible Ava had learned the news from the media coverage over the past three weeks.

"She didn't come home from school Friday afternoon." Detective Moore poised her pen above the notebook. Seemingly waiting with everything she had for a clear-cut answer. "Have you heard from her since Friday?"

"No. I messaged her. We'd planned on meeting up for a movie Friday night, but she never got back to me. I ended up seeing it alone. I waited for her at the theater." Ava scrambled for the high-end crossbody bag all the girls seemed to wear these days. The zipper was almost loud enough to dampen Ava's tight sob. She dug for something, pushing aside her wallet, breath mints, hand sanitizer. "I have the ticket to prove it. I swear, I didn't know anything was wrong. I thought she'd just ditched me."

Wesley Portman had lost his will to scold. Shoving to his feet, he left the conference room in a hurry, wrenching the door wide open and abandoning his daughter with two investigators.

But they couldn't pay attention to him right then. Leigh reached across the table. Set her hand in front of the panicked teen, like she'd wanted investigators to do when she'd been in Ava's exact position. Faced with the disappearance of her brother all those years ago. A small comfort, a kind word. Reassurance. Something to take away the hurt. "Ava, look at me."

The order stopped the girl in her frantic attempt to provide an alibi.

"You're not responsible for this. What happened with Poppy and Ruby and Saige is not your fault." Leigh added more sternness than she'd meant, but it was the only way to get Ava out of the downward spiral. "We believe you, but we are concerned that there is a connection between what's happened to your friends. Possibly even with your mother's disappearance. What can you tell us about the man in the photo? The one you said was with Poppy that night last summer."

"I don't remember." A fresh wave of tears burst free, and Ava's hand slammed down on top of Leigh's. Her polish-picked fingernails dug into the thin skin along the back of Leigh's hand. "You have to believe me. I'd never had alcohol before. I didn't know it would make me forget."

Leigh slid her free hand over the top of Ava's. "It's okay. Do you remember where you were the night this photo was taken or where the ride-share driver picked you up?"

Dark eyes—the same shade as her mother's—glided back to the photo set between them. "I… I think it was by a trail. I don't know which one, but I remember trees. One of them scratched me."

"Good." Leigh retracted her hold on the girl's hand. "That's good. Do you mind pulling up your ride-share history in the app to make sure?"

Ava nodded, suddenly no longer a fourteen-year-old but a child. Her emotions and body at the whim of the world determined to crush her. Reactive and scared. She handed off her phone. "I think this is it."

Leigh took the phone, angling it toward Detective Moore.

"You're sure it was this trail?" The detective didn't let a single emotion pulse through her composure. "The Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail?"

"I think so. I've never been there before. Not that I can remember," Ava said. The tears were gone. For now. "And I've never paid for someone else to be picked up or dropped off with my app."

Leigh imagined the next few hours would be difficult, knowing two girls Ava had known had been murdered with a third missing. Not to mention her mother's disappearance. Who would be there to help her through it? Elyse was gone, and Leigh didn't have a lot of faith in Wesley. Though it was possible for Ava to do this on her own, it wasn't ideal.

"Thank you for all your help." Detective Moore handed back the device. "If you think of anything else?—"

A gunshot exploded through the station.

Leigh and Detective Moore moved as one. The detective ducked behind the conference table, reaching for her sidearm, as Leigh went for Ava. She wrapped the girl in both arms and put her back to the door. To use her own body as a shield if necessary. Shouts echoed down the hallway. Officers rushing past the conference room window into the main area.

"Stay here." Leigh stretched a palm out to Ava as she aimed for the door.

Detective Moore unholstered her weapon, and they took the corridor as one.

Only neither of them were prepared for the scene ahead.

Officers parted around the body. Lead pitted in Leigh's stomach at the sight of so much blood. So much like the pool of blood in Elyse's house. With a single glance through the blinds, she set her sights on Ava. And the girl stared back at her. As if she already knew.

Detective Moore holstered her sidearm as she lunged to keep Wesley Portman from bleeding out on the floor, but the damage had already been done. She was just the last to see it. "Call an ambulance!"

"He grabbed my gun," an officer admitted to Leigh. He turned to her, devastation visually gutting him from the inside. "Why would he grab my gun?"