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They were looking for Elizabeth. They were looking for her body.
I refused to let myself fall apart until he finished. Until he said the words, there was still hope. “And? Did you find her?”
His eyes flashed again to Justin, making me suddenly angry.
“Well?” I insisted, my voice raised. “Did you? Did you find my baby girl?”
“No...” Disappointment wilted my spirit. “But one of the dogs found this...” He pulled out his phone to open a photo for me to look at.
So innocuous, you could barely even see it, but I’d know it anywhere. In some tall weeds was one of the little red ladybug barrettes I had put in her hair just that morning.
“Where did you find this?” I whispered, not sure how to process the fact that I was seeing something that was probably now in evidence and not in my daughter’s beautiful curls.
“So it is Elizabeth’s?”
I shoved the phone back at him. “Yes, it’s hers. I put two of them in her hair today.” I looked to Justin, whose pained expression must’ve mirrored my own because he knew what she was wearing as well as I did. “They matched her t-shirt.”
He nodded his thanks, then sprang into action, spinning away and speaking back into his radio.
Justin collected me close and ushered me into a quiet corner. “What can I do, baby?”
“Find her.”
The agony that sliced across his face at my words was palpable.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you would if you could. I’m just... this waiting is killing me and I feel useless just sitting here.”
“How do you think I feel? It was my job to keep you both safe, and now...” His eyes dropped as if the words were too heavy.
I cupped his jaw. “You didn’t do this either, you know.”
He shook his head. “I’m not—”
“Ashford,” Kade interrupted him from his spot at the dining table with the computer. “A word?”
“Go,” I said. “I need to go freshen up in the bathroom anyway.”
He nodded and joined Kade, where they spoke in hushed tones about whatever was on his screen.
I slipped out unnoticed as my mom washed dishes and my dad and brother chatted with the officers in the living room.
I shut myself in my bedroom and let the quiet surround me. I wanted so much to pray, but the words were stuck in my hollowed-out heart, so I could only hope that God knew what was there and would fill in the gap for me.
I didn’t have the energy for a shower, so I made do with washing my face in cold water. As I studied myself in the mirror, I barely recognized the pale woman with dark smudges beneath her red-rimmed eyes staring back.
On autopilot, I brushed my hair and pulled it up into a hasty bun, then changed out of my work clothes that I still had on, into joggers and a Hollow Point Security t-shirt I’d stolen from Justin. It was too big, so I tied it around the waist and let his scent that still clung to the fabric soothe my weary soul.
Hoping against hope, I checked my cell phone. Maybe Christoph or Sofia had reached out. I’d take anything at this point if it was contact about Elizabeth.
Nothing.
I tucked the phone in my pocket and padded down the hall, eager to see what Kade may have found.
I stopped short at the sound of my father’s hushed voice. “I have a whole new level of understanding for my brother. My God, if this was even a fraction of what poor Jack and Lorraine went through when Claire went missing,” he said, “I can’t even imagine...”
“None of us can,” my mother agreed, her voice hoarse with emotion.
I sagged against the wall, gutted all over again. Another little girl in my family was missing. I hadn’t even considered that.