Page 18 of Little Girl Vanished
She pulled back and looked up at me with wide eyes. “TJ won’t like it.”
I gave her a dry look. “Good thing I didn’t ask if TJ wanted me to find her then, huh? I’m asking if that’s what you want, Nessi.”
“No one’s called me that in years,” she said, fresh tears falling down her cheeks. “I think I stopped being Nessi when Andi died.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Habit, but I can stop.”
She shook her head. “No. I like remembering who I used to be.” She took a breath. “Will you look for her even though TJ will hate it?”
“Unlike when we were kids, I don’t give a shit what people think about me,” I said sarcastically, then turned serious. “Why aren’t you treating me like a pariah?”
Empathy covered her face. “There’s no way you’d kill a kid who wasn’t armed. And if you did, which would have been a tragic accident, you’d own up to it.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know you, Harper Adams. And if there’s anyone who can find my Ava, it’s you.”
“The police won’t like it either, so this will have to be a shadow investigation.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care. Just find my little girl.”
I wished I had a pair of gloves, my notebook, and a CSI team. Instead, I’d have to make do with taking notes and photos on my phone.
“I’m going to need names, addresses and phone numbers for all her friends, and anyone else she knows well. Teachers, Sunday school teachers, dance instructors. The sooner the better. I’m also going to need you to alert them that I’ll be asking questions so they’ll talk to me.”
“Okay.”
“Show me which window was open when you came up to her room.”
“That one,” she said, pointing to the window to the right.
“Do you have an unused towel or something else I can use to open it?” I asked, walking closer.
“You can just…” Her voice trailed off. “They didn’t fingerprint anything.”
“I can see that,” I said dryly. “But I don’t want to screw anything up in case they decide to later.” I kept the when they get their heads out of their asses to myself.
Vanessa walked out into the short hall and came back a few minutes later with two fluffy white washcloths.
I took them from her and used both to grab the handles at the bottom of the window. I gave the window a good tug, but the house was probably close to a hundred years old and between the southern Arkansas humidity and the inevitable multiple paint jobs on the wooden frame, it was stubborn to budge.
My heart sank. While I was behind on my workout routine, I had decent upper body strength. If I struggled with it, could a twelve-year-old girl have gotten it open?
I gave it a good tug, and it finally moved about six inches before I shoved it high enough so I could fit through it. That done, I poked my head through the opening, scanning the bare porch. “There’s no screen.”
“None of the windows have screens. We never open the windows. Paisley has a lot of allergies, so we only run the A/C or furnace.”
“Paisley?”
“My five-year-old.”
I stood upright in the room. “How far was the window open when you found it?”
“All the way open, like that.” She gestured to the window.
“And how tall would you say Ava is?”
She lifted her hand to her shoulder. “The top of her head comes to here now. She had a growth spurt last summer.” I estimated Vanessa to be five-three, which meant Ava was about four-eight. Her voice broke. “Tell me I’m going to see her again, Harper.”