“There’s a Publix a couple of miles away, but in the meantime, why don’t you just let me give you lunch? Nothing fancy. Just some ham salad sandwiches, carrot sticks, and a few grapes.”

“And cookies?” Maya said, always hopeful.

Ava took the child’s hand in hers. “Why yes, I think I can probably rustle up a couple of cookies.”

Letty followed Ava into the office, through a door, and up a narrow flight of stairs.

“Here it is. Home sweet home,” Ava said, pushing through the door at the top of the stairs.

They were standing in a large, sunny room with polished pine floors, pale blue walls, and a bank of windows looking out over the sparkling waters of the ocean. The room looked comfortable and lived-in, with a squashy denim-slipcovered sofa facing a flat-screen television in the living area, and a pine farmhouse table surrounded by painted rattan chairs in the dining area.

“This is so nice,” Letty said, trying not to sound envious. Her old apartment back in New York would have fit in the space occupied by that dining table. She found herself blinking back tears at the thought of that apartment. In her haste to flee the city she’d only taken time to throw a few belongings into the car, her laptop, toiletries, whatever clothes would fit into her smallest carry-on suitcase. Everything else had been left behind. By now she was sure Evan would be pawing through all of her things; her clothes, her books, the few family pictures she’d kept over the years, seeking some clue to her whereabouts. The thought of his hands—the same hands that were responsible for Tanya’s death—on her things made her skin crawl.

“Does your son live here with you?” Letty asked, looking around at the room that was decorated with a decidedly feminine look.

“Joe? Not a chance. He’s got his own place down the beach a ways. No, it’s just me and my youngest, Isabelle. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s mine, and it’s mostly paid for. Come on in the kitchen. I bet you two are starving.”

The kitchen was smaller and more dated than the front rooms, with a bank of metal cabinets, a four-burner stove, a refrigerator, and a chrome-and-Formica dinette set pushed up against a picture window that looked out through the tops of towering palm trees onto the motel’s sandy parking lot.

Ava set three plates on the table and placed a child’s booster seat on one of the four yellow vinyl-covered chairs.

“I knew there was a good reason I didn’t take this to the Goodwill,” she said.

She slid a platter of sandwiches in the center of the table, then added a plate of carrot sticks and apple slices. “What can I give the baby to drink?”

“Juice box!” Maya said, pounding a fist on the tabletop.