CHAPTER 40: Ava’s Safehouse
The tip came on a slip of yellow paper slid under Noah’s office door.
No signature. No flourish. Just two lines in blocky, uneven handwriting:
“She’s alive. The chapel on Old Mill Road. Ask for Sister Mercy.”
At first, Noah thought it was a prank—another distraction meant to keep him chasing shadows while the real story stayed buried. But the handwriting was careful in its own way, deliberate. Whoever wrote it had taken the time to disguise their hand. That meant they were afraid. That meant it could be real.
Old Mill Road wasn’t on the way to anything. It curled out past the river, through a stretch of pine woods that seemed to darken no matter the time of day. Noah remembered it from childhood—a road whispered about as a place where people went to be forgotten.
The chapel appeared suddenly through the trees, its brick walls scarred by age, its bell tower leaning just enough to make him wonder how it was still standing. The stained-glass windows were mostly cracked or missing, jagged holes letting in slivers of light.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door. The air inside was cooler, carrying the faint scent of dust and candle wax.
A figure emerged from the shadows near the altar—a small woman in a plain gray habit. Her face was lined with deep creases, her eyes sharp but not unkind.
“You’re Noah North,” she said, not a question.
He nodded slowly. “And you’re Sister Mercy?”
“I’ve been called worse.” She moved closer, her steps unhurried. “You’re looking for Ava.”
“I was told she’s here.”
Sister Mercy studied him for a long beat. “Why should I tell you where she is? Every time someone finds her, trouble follows. This girl has survived more than you know.”
“I’m trying to keep her alive,” Noah said. “She’s connected to one of my clients—Isaiah Reed. She may be the only person who can clear him.”
The nun’s gaze didn’t soften, but her shoulders eased. “If I believed you were here to exploit her, I’d have you out that door before you could take your next breath.”
“I’m not here for leverage,” Noah said. “I’m here because people keep disappearing in this town, and if Ava’s next, I want to stop it.”
Sister Mercy turned and gestured for him to follow. They walked down a narrow hallway lined with old confessionals, the wood splintering from years of neglect. She stopped at a door at the far end and knocked twice.
“Ava? It’s Mercy. You’ve got a visitor.”
There was no sound from inside at first. Then, the faint scrape of a chair. The door creaked open a few inches, and one wary green eye peered through the gap.
When Ava stepped fully into the light, Noah almost didn’t recognize her. The confident edge she’d carried under the bridge was gone. She looked thinner, her clothes mismatched and worn, her hair pulled back in a hasty knot.
“You came,” she said, voice low.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
They sat in a small back room that might once have been a sacristy. The walls were lined with shelves of dusty hymnals, and a single lamp cast a dim yellow circle across the table.
Sister Mercy left them alone, though Noah could hear her footsteps pacing just outside.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to vanish,” Noah said.
“Would you have let me?” Ava asked, picking at the frayed cuff of her sweater.
“No. And that’s exactly why you didn’t tell me.”
Her mouth quirked into something halfway between a smile and a grimace. “People who get close to me don’t stay alive for long.”
“You mean Isaiah?”
“I mean everyone,” she said. “Isaiah… the boy in red… the lawyer woman they found in the river. You think this started with you? It didn’t. This goes back a long way.”
The boy in red. The phrase hit Noah like a cold slap. His father’s notes. The therapy files. The whispered warnings.
“Ava, I need you to tell me exactly what you know. Names. Dates. Anything.”
She shook her head. “If I talk, they’ll kill me. If I don’t, they’ll kill me slower. At least this way, I’m the one choosing when it happens.”
He leaned forward. “Isaiah is sitting in a cell for a crime I don’t believe he committed. Jordan Langston’s life is hanging by a thread. And my father—” He stopped himself, his throat tightening. “My father was destroyed by the same people you’re hiding from.”
Ava met his eyes, something fierce flickering there. “Then you know why I can’t trust anyone.”
“Trust me,” he said. “At least enough to let me protect you.”
The sound of a door slamming somewhere in the chapel made them both freeze. Sister Mercy appeared in the doorway a moment later, her face pale.
“You need to leave,” she said to Noah.
“Why?”
“Because someone just pulled up in a black SUV and they’re walking this way. Two men. They don’t look like parishioners.”
Ava was already on her feet, her chair skidding back against the wall. “You see? This is why I can’t stay anywhere too long.”
Noah’s mind was already moving. “Is there a back way out?”
“Through the cellar,” Sister Mercy said. “Hurry.”
They moved fast, the creak of their footsteps on the old wooden floorboards swallowed by the pounding in Noah’s ears. The cellar was a cramped, stone-walled space smelling of damp earth. Sister Mercy pulled up a warped section of floor, revealing a narrow tunnel lined with rotting beams.
“This will take you to the tree line,” she said. “After that, you’re on your own.”
Ava hesitated at the tunnel’s edge, looking at Noah. “If you’re lying about helping me—”
“I’m not,” he said. “But if you vanish again, I can’t promise I’ll find you next time.”
Her eyes lingered on his for just a moment longer before she disappeared into the dark. Noah followed, crouching low as the tunnel sloped downward. The only light came from the cracks in the boards above them.
They emerged in the forest behind the chapel, the late afternoon sun blinding after the tunnel’s darkness. Ava was already moving, keeping low, her steps quick and practiced. Noah stayed close, glancing back once to see the faint outline of the SUV through the trees.
By the time they reached the old fence line, Ava stopped. “I can’t go with you. Not yet.”
“You’re safer with me than out here,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’ll reach out when I’m ready. Until then… watch your back. They don’t like people digging where they’ve buried the truth.”
And then she was gone, slipping into the shadows between the trees like she’d been born there.
Noah stood alone for a moment, the wind rustling through the pines, the distant toll of the chapel’s bell sounding hollow and strange.
She was alive. She knew more than she was saying. And now, he had a new problem—two men in a black SUV who had come looking for her, and who would soon realize she was gone.
The war in Bellview had just widened its front.