Page 47 of Ace

Warmth wraps around me as my shoulders shake. I can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. As much as I have worried about Sadie all these years, knowing this was a possibility, I never really let the idea sink inside as a viable option.

Things like this don't happen to our family, but even as the thought crosses my mind, I realize I lost my mother to cancer and my father to a heart attack. The Prestons have suffered way too much, and this is no exception.

"When?" I sob. "When did they find her?"

"December twenty-second."

I snap my eyes up to his. "Two days after she was at the house?"

I shake my head, a sliver of hope growing inside of me.

"It can't be her. She was in South Carolina. Didn't you check the bus stations? The airport? How did she make it overthere so quickly if she didn't fly or take some form of public transportation?"

"Cora," he says, the same softness in his tone the doctor had when he came out into the waiting room after Dad's heart attack. "It's her."

I continue to shake my head. "It's not. We can prove it. I want to see the body."

His lips form a flat line. "That's not possible."

"Of course, it's possible," I snap, standing and brushing my hands down the front of my clothes as if straightening my dress will help me put my chaotic life back together.

"She was buried in a pauper's grave."

"A pauper's grave?"

"It's what they have to do when they don't have—"

"I know what a pauper's grave is," I growl before I can get my reaction under control.

This man isn't trying to insult me. He's trying to help me understand. But there's no way of understanding why he'd think for a second I'd believe my twenty-three-year-old sister is gone from this world.

I can't.

I won't.

"We tested her DNA against yours," he says, standing up beside me as if he might try and stop me if I attempt to leave.

"What? How? If the body has been buried—"

"They keep samples on file in hopes they can ID someone at a later date."

"I want proof," I say with tears still streaming down my face.

"I have copies of the DNA results being emailed to me," he says.

I shake my head, lifting my hand to dash away my tears. "No. I need more than that."

Sadness fills his face. "They have pictures, but, Cora, you don't want to see those. You don't want them in your head. Trust me."

He's probably right. The last memory I want of my little sister shouldn't be of her deceased, but how is it any worse than the last conversation I had with her that might've contributed to her death?

"I have to see them," I whisper, beginning to deflate, defeat taking over my body until it seems like I weigh a million pounds.

"I understand," he says. "They should be in my email."

Dread swims inside of me as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

"No," I snap when he goes to turn it around to face me. "I want her body exhumed."

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