Upon completion, Dave pulled out his phone and glanced at it, checking the time. “I’m afraid I have plans for the rest of the day,” he said. “Will you be returning to check the footage?” Ella was a little taken aback by the sudden formality. “Uh, yeah,” she responded. Dave nodded and accompanied her back to the car park. “Just text me when you plan to return,” Dave said. “Okay,” Ella acknowledged, unlocking the door to Lon’s car. Dave turned as though to leave, but stopped himself. He leaned down so his face was level with the car window. “Try not to miss me too much,” he said huskily. Ella’s cheeks burned, but she was quick to snap back at him. “As if,” she said, quickly reversing the car. Dave watched her pull away. Ella decided to wait a few days before checking the footage, to give the thief time to strike again. She sat in her room at the Tremaine house, pouring over newspaper articles on her mother’s disappearance. She had them all memorized by this point, but she always wondered what she could possibly be missing. Who stood to gain by my mother disappearing? She wondered. The crime seemed both sophisticated and sophomoric; the perpetrator had not left any fingerprints, markings, or shoe prints, had hidden the body well enough that it was never found, even eleven years later--but they also had not cleaned up the crime scene very well, had not thought to take any money to disguise it as a burglary-gone-wrong and had chosen to kidnap and murder a woman with no political or individual significance publicly. Ella had looked through photos and records of Hailey’s friends and former co-workers, and had phoned them all as well, and none seemed to have any reason to hold a grudge against Hailey. Hailey’s ex-boyfriends were nearly impossible to track down, as she did not keep a record of them and Hailey did not have any surviving parents. Ella found a photograph of Hailey with a young man at prom, but there was no other trace of him to be found, and she came to the conclusion that he was, overall, unimportant in her life. There was no logical, up-front reason anyone would have wanted to eliminate Hailey, whether for corporeal or emotional gain. Ella knew there had to be something she was missing. There was something either Hailey didn’t want anyone to know, or the killer, or both, and that thing had ultimately led to her demise. Something was missing from the story of Hailey’s life--something she did not wish to have exposed to the people around her--and that thing, that was the missing link in the story. It had to be. The only alternative was a meaningless, random crime, but there were no serial killers in the area at the time of Hailey’s disappearance, and it did appear as though the killer had known Hailey would be home alone at that time, which would require a level of preparation Ella wasn’t sure a random perpetrator would indulge. Plus, if it had been some sort of roving rapist or killer, wouldn’t they have simply let the corpse lie where it fell? Attempting to uncover the true story of what happened to her mother had turned out to be the most soul-crushing, frustrating and exhausting endeavor Ella could ever seek to partake in. She knew she was woefully underqualified and unprepared for the venture, as she lacked the advanced technology and equipment the police would have access to. She was essentially Sherlock Holmes-ing her way around, trying, without the use of what she considered to be necessary gadgetry, to uncover the grand truth of what had happened to Hailey Tremaine to make her disappear from the face of the earth eleven years prior. Still, she wasn’t giving up. I have to figure out what the hell happened to my mom, Ella thought, so that I may finally die.