To Maura, If You're Out There...

I'm still very much treating the research for this book like an investigation into a murder. The most likely explanation to me is that she traveled to the North Country planning to meet someone (possibly picking them up along the way, or meeting them in the area and following toward some other location) and then something went wrong.
But...
After speaking to Hossein, members of the track team and getting this info about the bank, as well as a very interesting tip on a recent sighting of Maura with a child, I am open to the possibility that she is alive and choosing to live a new life. If that is the case, and Maura is reading these posts I'd like to make a request:
Please let me or the police know you're alive and well. If this isn't a case of murder, you have the right to continue on with this new life away from the ones you left behind. Verify that you're okay and the police can close their investigation, I can stop researching the disappearance, and you can stay in hiding. Right now, though, everyone is kind of assuming the worst.