Nilsson asked, “How about any favorite places she might go? Places that her ex wouldn’t know about?”
Her mother looked ceilingward. “She didn’t take vacations much.”
Harmon gave a wan smile. “It was hard to pry her out of the office.”
Shaw asked, “When she did go, any geographic preference? Mountains or forests, beach?”
“We didn’t do outdoors much when she was young. Resorts mostly. Recently? They never went to the beach that I heard about. Disney and Universal, places like that, with Hannah.”
Shaw asked, “Any phobias or aversions to any particular types of transportation or places?”
“You mean, does she get seasick?”
“Or carsick. Anything that might limit the distance she’d travel.”
“No, nothing like that,” Ruth said. “She and Hannah and I drove to some of the Summit ski areas two years ago. No issues, either of them.”
Shaw looked at Harmon, who shook his head. “Can’t help you there.”
“You think she’d know how to go off the grid?”
Ruth told them, “I know she and Jon and Hannah went camping some.” In a wry voice she added, “But that hasn’t been for a while; last I checked there weren’t a lot of bars in the woods. As for living in a tent and catching her own fish? No, that’s not Alli. She’s not one of those survivalist weirdos.”
Shaw kept the smile at bay. “Would she be armed?”
“No, no. She hated Jon keeping his gun in the house. Because of his drinking. And with what happened last November, she wouldn’t have anything to do with a gun.”
Shaw said, “If we’re lucky she’ll check email. Both of you send her a message asking her to call me or Sonja. She’ll remember me from the S.I.T. investigation.”
He recited the digits.
Both Harmon and Parker’s mother typed.
“Done,” she said.
Harmon asked, “What’re the odds she’ll read it?”
Colter Shaw, a man of assessing percentage likelihood in all aspects of his life, knew that sometimes there were simply too many variables and too little facts available to allow you to assign a number.
It was Nilsson who answered. “All we can do is hope.”
As good an appraisal as any.
“You’ll tell me how it’s going?” Ruth asked in a soft voice.
Harmon said, “Absolutely. Colter and Sonja’ll keep me posted, and I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
Nilsson asked, “Mrs. Parker, why do you think she stayed with him?”
After a moment: “You hear that question a lot. Why do abused women stay with their men? Out of fear, I guess. Fear of loneliness...” She looked away. “And even when they work up the courage, and do the right thing, the brave thing, and walk away, they have to ask, is the empty house worth it? Sometimes the answer’s yes, sometimes the answer’s no.”
22
Mother and daughter were speeding north, once again on rough-and-ready Route 55.
Not on a bus, or in her SUV. But in a late model Kia sedan that she’d just rented.