Chapter 4 - The Missing Forty Minutes
By midnight, the official Northbridge office had been searched.
Detective Ortiz called Claire from the station.
The glass building contained therapy rooms, administrative offices, employee records, and properly documented programs. Nothing inside matched Ava’s drawing.
Dr. Celeste Wynn was not there.
Her assistant claimed she had left for a professional conference that morning.
Richard Bell had also disappeared.
Westbridge Academy’s security system showed that Ava entered the library every Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. and left through the main entrance at 5:40 p.m.
The footage looked convincing until a technician examined it frame by frame.
The same group of students appeared in identical positions on three different dates. A teacher lifted the same coffee cup. A boy dropped the same book. The same vehicle passed the front windows at the same second.
The footage had been duplicated.
At 2:10 a.m., investigators recovered a backup file from a separate server. It showed Richard Bell leading Ava and three other children through a staff corridor at 3:37 p.m.
The group returned at 5:06 p.m.
Eighty-nine minutes were missing from Ava’s school day.
The following morning, police traced a school maintenance van through traffic cameras. Every Tuesday it traveled toward Larkspur Lane, but it disappeared from public cameras for nearly forty minutes.
Claire remained with Ava in a protected hospital room until a temporary safety plan could be arranged. Ethan was released from questioning, though Detective Ortiz warned him not to leave the city.
When he entered Ava’s room, he stopped near the door.
Ava was sitting by the window with a puzzle on her lap.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Ava looked at Claire before nodding.
Ethan approached slowly.
“I’m sorry I lied about Northbridge,” he said. “I thought I could fix it without frightening you or Mom.”
Ava pushed two puzzle pieces together.
“You said secrets are only good for birthday presents.”
“I know.”
“You kept a bad secret.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to disappear?”
“No.”
“Did they show you the video too?”
Ethan frowned.
“What video?”
“The one where the police take you away.”
“No.”
Ava finally looked at him.
“They knew your coat.”
Ethan’s face changed.
In the video Ava had been shown, the man being placed into a police car had worn Ethan’s gray winter coat. The face had never been clearly visible, but Ava had recognized the coat and Ethan’s dark hair.
Someone had created the scene specifically for her.
Later that morning, Detective Ortiz drove Claire and Ethan along Larkspur Lane while other officers checked properties linked to Northbridge employees.
The thirty-first house had green shutters.
It stood behind a tall wooden fence. The lawn was empty, and no vehicle sat in the driveway. According to property records, it belonged to a company called Carden Educational Services.
The company’s director was Jonathan Mercer, an attorney specializing in family trusts and guardianship disputes.
Claire knew the name.
Mercer’s firm had helped manage Evelyn Harper’s estate.
Police entered the property with a warrant.
The living room was nearly empty. Fresh paint covered the walls, and cleaning chemicals lingered in the air. Upstairs, the bedrooms contained no furniture.
In the basement, investigators found a blue door.
Its silver handle was shaped like a tree.
Ava had remembered correctly.
Behind the door was a room large enough for seven chairs. The walls had recently been painted white, but blue showed beneath the edges.
The camera had been removed.
So had the tables, files, and equipment.
Only one object remained.
A child’s yellow hair ribbon lay beneath a radiator.
Detective Ortiz sealed it as evidence.
A technician discovered that part of the wall sounded hollow. Behind a removable panel was a small metal box containing several memory cards.
Most had been erased.
One card held a partial video.
The recording showed the blue room two months earlier. Seven children sat in a line while a woman in a white coat walked in front of them.
Her face remained outside the camera frame.
She asked each child the same question.
“Which parent makes your home unsafe?”
The children answered one by one.
Some named their mothers. Others named their fathers.
When the camera reached Ava, she remained silent.
The woman placed a folder on the table.
“Your mother is already forgetting important things,” she said. “Your father signed documents he does not understand. The court needs one honest answer.”
Ava shook her head.
The woman leaned closer.
“We can remove both of them, or you can choose one.”
The recording ended.
Claire pressed a hand over her mouth.
Detective Ortiz inserted the second memory card.
It contained scanned legal documents.
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The first file was titled CLAIRE HALE FITNESS REVIEW.
It had been created six months before Ava ever entered the blue room.
