Page 85 of Stolen Ones

Bryant parked in front of one of the detached properties with an immaculate garden.

As they stepped onto the path, an attractive woman in her mid-fifties stepped out of the box porch, holding a cup of coffee. She was clearly headed for a bench in the corner that was bathed in the morning sun.

‘Mrs Walters?’ Kim asked.

The woman nodded and waited.

Kim introduced them both as they showed their IDs.

She chose her next words carefully. She didn’t want this woman to feel any false hope for even a minute, and any sentence that began with ‘we’ve found Lexi’ could give the wrong impression.

‘Mrs Walters, would you like to take a seat?’

She shook her head and waited.

‘Mrs Walters, the remains of a young girl have been found at Hawne Park.’

‘Is it Lexi?’ she whispered.

Kim nodded. ‘Confirmed by dental records.’

The mug slipped from her grip and smashed on the ground.

Not one of them looked at it.

‘Let’s go inside,’ Kim advised, touching the woman on the elbow.

She turned as though in a dream, and the two of them followed.

Kim was surprised when they walked directly into the kitchen on the front of the house.

‘It’s why we bought it,’ Mrs Walters said, filling the kettle.

‘No, thank you,’ they both answered.

‘Please, have tea,’ she said, with her back turned.

‘Okay, thank you,’ Kim said, understanding that she needed a minute to allow the news to sink in. One of the hardest things to deal with was the hope. It had kept her company for twenty-three years and now she had to let it go.

‘You’re sure it’s Lexi?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘H-How old was she when she died?’ she asked, spooning coffee into the cups. She then added a tea bag, and Kim was thankful that there was no expectation to drink them.

‘No older than seven,’ Kim said gently.

Lexi had been taken in 1998 when she was six, and the building works had been completed towards the end of ’99, before the millennium.

Many years this woman had waited with hope for the return of her daughter, and for twenty-two of those years, the hope had been futile. But Kim was surprised to see what looked like a sigh of relief shudder through her back.

‘Is Mr Walters…?’

‘Dead. Two years ago next month. He never got over it; neither of us did,’ she said, placing the hot drinks on the table at which they’d sat.

Bryant glanced her way. He’d obviously noted the mistake too.

Mrs Walters sat. ‘My husband eventually wanted us to try again for more children, but I couldn’t. All I could think was that if Lexi came back, she’d think we’d tried to replace her. I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to love another child, to play with it, to laugh with it while Lexi was going through God knows what.’ Another shudder passed over her but of a different kind. ‘Just another layer of guilt, and I didn’t deserve the happiness of a second chance.’