Liam got out of the car, his boots scraping the gravel. He did not look at Natalie or the officer, but his knuckles made a sharp pop as he cracked them.
“Liam,” I said, turning to him. “Tell them. Tell them how Mitchell was hovering around her all week.”
Liam looked down at his shoes and muttered nothing.
“He has her,” I told the officer, my voice rising over the idle of the patrol car. “You need to issue an alert.”
Natalie stepped closer to the officer, still calm, still distant. “They left together, Officer. Nobody was forced.”
The officer made a small mark on his pad. “We’ll run the plates on the boy’s car.”
I watched Natalie walk toward her own vehicle, her steps even and unhurried. She did not look back at us, not even when John called out a quiet thank you to the officer.
By eleven, the fluorescent lights of the Oakhaven police lobby had given me a headache. John sat on the plastic bench, staring at a poster about bicycle safety, his fingers tracing the seam of his jeans.
I paced the linoleum, my watch ticking against my wrist.
A sergeant named Miller came through the double doors, holding a clipboard. He looked at us with the tired patience of a man who dealt with runaway teenagers every weekend.
“We checked the boy’s address,” Miller said. “His mother was correct about one thing. Mitchell’s gray sedan is gone from the driveway.”
“That means he drove her away,” I said. “He took her out of the county.”
“It means they both left in his car,” Miller replied. “Her own vehicle is still parked in your driveway, correct?”
“She wouldn’t leave her car,” I said. “She loves that car. She spent three years saving for it.”
“People leave things behind when they want to start over,” Miller said.
“She did not want to start over,” I said, my voice sharp. “She has college in the fall. She has her whole life here. You need to put out a multi-state bulletin.”
John stood up slowly, his shoulders hunched. “Camila, let him finish.”
“I am finishing,” I said. “I want an active search. I want his face on the news.”
