AVA CAME AWAKE to the sound of the doorbell, police lights flashing across her front windows.
She had fallen asleep on the couch. Her mind was numb with fatigue and worry and too much wine, and when she saw rising from the plush chair directly across from her a thin white man with a red beard and dressed in a suit, she almost screamed.
Then she remembered: she had invited him into her house. His name was John Bace, the LAPD detective who had taken over her daughter’s case. Detective Alves was still hospitalized.
John Bace was smiling now. Right then, Ava knew the police had found her daughter—alive.
It was like she was rising from the depths of an ocean. She broke the surface of the water, gasping, the sweet air filling her lungs and rinsing away the iron grip of fear that had laid claim to her mind, body, and soul. Her eyes clouded with tears of relief and gratitude and she held on to the doorway to keep from falling.
Detective Bace grabbed her by the arm. “Easy,” he said. “Easy. Everything’s fine. Your daughter is fine.”
“Where?”
“At a hospital in Ojai. No, she’s okay, I swear. Come on—I’ll take you to her.”
Ava headed to Bace’s department car, a black Ford Fusion. She got into the back, and she didn’t realize she’d forgotten to put on her shoes until Bace brought them to her.
“I want to talk to her,” Ava said, after Bace slid behind the wheel.
He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Cell signals up that way are spotty, because of all the wildfires. And they’re running some tests—standard stuff, don’t worry—and they don’t allow cell phones back there. Where’s Charles? I thought he was staying with you.”
“He went into the office.” Ava caught his confusion and said, “China is fifteen hours ahead of us. Charles wanted to be there when the markets open. I’ll call him and let him know what’s happening. He can meet us there. Go. Please.”
Two cruisers—one in front, the other in the rear—escorted them out of the neighborhood. It was predominantly quiet, so they didn’t need to use sirens. The flashing lights were enough to signal drivers to pull aside and let them through.
When she called Charles and told him the news, his voice was thick with sleep, and she could hear a woman’s voice in the background. Charles had told her he was involved with someone. Her name was Emma and she was all of thirty-two. From bits and pieces of conversation with Charles, Ava had gathered that this whole ordeal with Grace had frightened Emma terribly, made her feel unsafe when she stayed in his brand-new mansion in Bel Air.
Ava didn’t judge him, was no longer in a position to judge.
“What was she doing all the way up in Ojai?” Ava asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that. We’ll find out more when we arrive.”
Ava stared out the window, trying to absorb everything, trying to get herself settled so she could think. The homes raced by her in a blur. She was more awake than she’d ever been in her entire life.
“Sebastian Kane,” Bace said.
Ava turned away from the window, saw Bace looking at her in the rearview.
“He’s one of the people you visited to help raise money for the ransom, correct?”
“Yes,” Ava said. “Why?”
“He was in Ojai. With your daughter.”
Our daughter, Ava added privately. “What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could shed some light on that.”
She hated the circuitous way cops spoke, asking questions around the questions they really wanted to ask. She had grown tired of it. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”
His tone told her everything she needed to know. She straightened in her seat. “What happened?”
“That’s the million-dollar question at the moment. What little we know came through your daughter. She said he was shot multiple times, and—”
“Grace saw him—”
“No,” Bace said quickly. “No, she didn’t see him get shot. But she did see his body.”
“He’s dead?”
Bace nodded somberly. In her mind’s eye she saw flashes of the boy she’d once known and loved—Sebastian winning her the world’s ugliest stuffed bear at a carnival and Sebastian bringing a bouquet of carnations to her mother. Sebastian always attentive and listening and gentle, always gentle with her.
“I’m sorry,” Bace said. “I understand you two were once close.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Well, I wanted to prepare you for it. I should also tell you it’s going to take some time to get an official medical ruling on how he died. His body . . . He collapsed near the site of a wildfire that is still raging.”
Ava nodded, somewhat surprised at the sudden loss she felt.
The night that changed their lives forever, Sebastian had been only trying to protect her. But that hadn’t stopped the police from arresting him and then sending him to jail, and with the baby growing inside her, Ava had come face-to-face with the cruelty and coldness of parenthood—her life and her choices had belonged to someone else. Her new life had involved forever being consumed by making thousands of daily decisions to protect and nurture someone who didn’t have the capacity to make decisions.
It had all been up to her.
Every. Single. Thing.
Ava had always been pragmatic. She knew she had to let go of her old life and form a new one, without Sebastian. She had to cut off all ties and reinvent herself, give her child (and herself, too) a clean slate. A life where her child would grow up never knowing he or she had a father serving life in prison. Once she made that decision, she never looked back. It hurt like hell, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was for the best.
“I don’t know much in the way of details other than the Ojai police found your daughter and that she’s okay,” Bace said. “They’re still at the scene, still gathering stuff, but they promised to fill me in on everything they have so far when we arrive. I promise I’ll share everything with you when I know more.”
Ava closed her eyes. Sebastian waited for her there, in her mind.
Her heart.
Sebastian had been her first love, and you never forgot your first. The Sebastian she had known had a lot of anger in him, yes, but she also thought he’d had a lot of potential.
And when she saw him recently, after those decades apart, she realized her instincts had been correct. She had been looking forward to getting to know him again. Who knew what would have developed?
Now she would never know.
That was probably for the best.
The ER doctor told her he had given Grace a mild sedative to calm her down. When the police brought her in, he said, she was barefoot and wearing only a Windbreaker and in a state of shock. She would not explain how she’d lost her clothes or how she’d gotten the fresh cuts and scrapes on her knees, thighs, hands, and elbows; but she did tell him a man named Paul had given her molly, and she kept asking if the entire world had been engulfed in fire. She said she wouldn’t speak to anyone except her mother. The doctor didn’t have the results from the lab yet, and he couldn’t say whether or not she had been sexually assaulted, because Grace refused to let anyone examine her.
Ava found it difficult to slide back the curtain. She didn’t know what condition Grace was in, and a part of her believed that some terrible mistake had been made.
With a held breath and with her heart slamming against her chest, Ava pulled back the curtain.
And there she was, her daughter, looking real and alive underneath the harsh overhead light. Grace lay on her back, her eyes shut and her features relaxed, her mouth parted slightly and her chest slowly rising and falling; she was lost in sleep. She wore a hospital gown, and her cuts and scrapes were covered in bandages and gauze, and she had an IV line connected to a bag of saline. The doctor said he wanted to keep her well hydrated.
Ava let out her breath, and the terror she’d been carrying dissolved like wet sand, made her knees buckle and her eyes water with gratitude. Grace had dried blood on her hands and forearms, and her toes and the soles of her feet were stained with grass and caked with dirt, and she reeked of smoke, but she looked okay. Ava was more worried about her daughter’s mental health.
Detective Bace hovered close by, along with a young nurse who wore a worried expression on her face. Ava did not want to share this moment with them. She asked for some privacy, and she did not wait for their answer. She slid the curtain back and, blinking back tears, fought the terrible urge to reach out and clutch her daughter, let out all the soul-crushing terror she’d been carrying for what felt like decades.
But this wasn’t about her; it was about her daughter. She needed to be strong. Be strong, she told herself as she sat on the side of the mattress. Be strong for her. This is about Grace, not you. Put her first.
And Ava would. She had been putting Grace first her whole life—had done so willingly and gladly. That was what you did as a parent. You put the needs and welfare of your child above your own, always and forever, until the day you died.
Grace’s eyes fluttered opened, widened when she saw her mother sitting next to her.
“You’re home, baby,” Ava said, her voice clear and strong.
Grace’s lips quivered, and just before she pushed herself up and gathered herself in her mother’s arms, Ava caught a glimpse of the terror and pain that were now living behind her daughter’s eyes. It cut Ava deeply, knowing there was nothing she could do to erase her daughter’s pain, and like a child Ava wished that God would somehow magically grant her wish to remove this burden from her daughter. If Ava could trade a limb, even her eyesight, to erase her daughter’s pain, she would do it.
But life didn’t work that way—and God didn’t work that way. God had left his own son to die on the cross, so it was foolish to think that He would meddle in her affairs. She would guide her daughter through this. Ava had gathered a lot of hard-bought experience in the area of pain management—and that’s all life was, learning how to manage your pain.
Grace sobbed against her chest. Ava rubbed her daughter’s back. She kissed the top of her head and her cheek, Grace’s sobs loud and wet against her ear, and she kept holding on to her daughter when she felt her relax in her arms.
“They—” Grace began.
“You don’t have to talk,” Ava whispered. “There’s plenty of time for that later. You’re safe. That’s all you need to think about right now.”
“She made me go to him.”
“Who?”
“The woman. She said she was working with Dad.”
“Your father? He didn’t have—”
“She kept saying he was the one who rushed inside the house to come get me. She’s crazy. She made me get out of the car and kneel down in all this blood next to this man lying in the road and kept screaming at me to talk to him.”
Ava felt very still.
“I’d never seen him before,” Grace said. “This woman kept telling me to talk to him even though he was, like, already dead.”
“What did this man say?”
“Nothing. The fires were coming and there was all this smoke and we had to leave. We had to leave him there.”
“You left him there,” Ava said, trying hard not to picture Sebastian.
“Yeah. In the road. We left him there and he probably, like, got all burned up.”
“Who was this woman?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me her name—and she wouldn’t tell me why I had to talk to this dead guy. Sebastian was his name. Sebastian Kane.” Grace sniffled. Swallowed. Sniffled again. “Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Ava said, rubbing her daughter’s back. “I’ve known him all my life. You will, too.”