The car is still as we wait for me to give a signal that I don’t plan on giving anytime soon. I look out at the hotel. Somewhere inside is my mother.

A woman whose help I desperately need.

The silence is shattered when Sheriff Gleason’s phone rings. “Hello?” He glances back at me. “Yes, we’re here. We … Yes, she needs a couple more minutes. Got it.”

I look down at the car floor. I feel like such a bitch for not rushing in to greet my mother with open arms. It’s just … hard. How can I switch off a part of my brain that has always put my father first? How can I simply accept this new version of my life?

Maybe I should treat this like ripping off a bandage. Get it over with. Once it’s off, it won’t be so painful.

I open the car door and start walking toward the entrance of the hotel. Sheriff Gleason and Grandma Gleason follow behind me. I go straight to the elevator and press the up button.

“What floor?” I ask, my voice robotic.

“Fourth,” Sheriff Gleason responds. “Room 402.”

I nod as I hit the button.

“Hold the elevator,” a voice calls out.

Sheriff Gleason reaches his hands out to stop the door from closing. A man gets in the elevator with us. I feel the blood rush out of my face when I realize it’s that young male reporter from Fox News.

“Thanks.” He gives us his big white-toothed smile. He’s scribbling in his notebook, and it takes everything I have not to look over his shoulder to see what he’s writing.

If he only knew who he was standing next to.

“A little cold out there,” Grandma Gleason says to the guy.

“Yes. I’m not used to it.”

Why is she talking to him?

It’s then that I realize Sheriff Gleason has his head tilted away from him. He’s been ducking reporters as he goes in and out of the station all week.

Grandma Gleason is simply trying to distract the reporter. “You’re not from around here, I take it.”

“No, I’m in town for a story. Have you heard about the missing girl who was found?”

I can only stare at the door.

“I did. How wonderful!”

Wonderful?

She continues, “We’re up here from Milwaukee to look at schools, and of course see Lambeau Field. Are you a Packers fan?”

“Not a big football fan,” the reporter replies as we finally reach the fourth floor.

I don’t breathe until the three of us get off the elevator and the doors close, leaving the reporter behind.

At least that nerve-racking encounter made me forget for thirty seconds why we were in the elevator to begin with.

“Not a word,” Sheriff Gleason whispers as we walk to the room. “We don’t know who’s listening.”