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“Because she was an adult when she came to me, and because she begged me not to contact anyone.”
Michael’s face hardened.
“You knew she was a missing person.”
“Not immediately.”
“But eventually.”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing.”
Elaine’s voice stayed calm.
“I encouraged her to contact you. Repeatedly.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No. It isn’t.”
I understood his anger.
Part of me shared it.
But another part of me was clinging to the fact that Nora had survived long enough to reach Elaine.
I asked, “What happened to her?”
Elaine glanced toward the cafe again.
“She left the beach with a 19-year-old boy named Caleb.”
The name meant nothing to me.
That somehow made it worse.
Elaine said Nora had been seeing him secretly for a few months.
He lived in another town.
They had met online after Nora lied about her age on a dating app.
Nora knew that Michael and I would never approve of a 19-year-old dating our 16-year-old daughter.
So she hid him.
Caleb had been trying to convince her to spend time alone with him for a while.
On that fateful day, he convinced her to leave the beach with him.
Just for a weekend.
That was what he told her.
They would go away for two days.
A little adventure.
A chance to prove her love for him.
Nora left her phone behind because Caleb said her parents would track it.
She left her sandals because she had been walking barefoot anyway.
She wore the cover-up over her swimsuit and climbed into his car.
I pressed both hands over my mouth.
Michael looked like he might be sick.
“What happened? Why didn’t she come home?”
Elaine was quiet for a moment. “Because he didn’t take her back.”
At first, Nora apparently believed he was just extending the trip.
Then he started controlling where she went.
He held onto her money.
He told her the police were looking for him too now and that if she went home, both of them would be arrested.
Then he started telling her that we hated her.
That we’d never forgive her.
That everyone would think she was stupid.