Page 29 of Little Buried Secrets

I reached into my backpack, grabbed a pair of gloves, and slid them over my hands. Then I turned toward Whitlock, cupping my hands to the sides of my mouth, shouting, “I think I found something. Someone may have dug a hole over here.”

“How big?”

“From the looks of it, big enough to dispose of a body.”

“You’re checking it out, right?” he asked.

“I don’t see any reason why I should wait. Do you?”

“I don’t. Could be nothing. Could be something. Why not find out?”

He had a point, and it was my find, after all.

I crouched down and pressed my fingers into the soil, using them as a trowel to scoop and shift dirt around.

One foot down—nothing.

I kept going.

Another six inches—still nothing.

Another couple of inches, and something brushed across my glove that didn’t feel like soil. I bent down to get a better look and jerked my hand back, standing, as I shouted to Whitlock, “I found something!”

“Something good?”

“Good enough that we need to get Foley over here right now.”

CHAPTER 13

It all started with a finger. A finger attached to an arm, attached to a dead body … Margot’s body. In an instant, the search for the kindhearted teen had come to a tragic end, the heart-wrenching truth bearing down like a gut punch to the chest.

A few facts were apparent:

Someone had murdered her.

Someone had dug a shallow grave.

And someone had put her in it.

Why here, less than a quarter mile away from a popular trail, and not somewhere else?

Maybe her murderer hadn’t planned anything out before he’d taken her.

Maybe he panicked.

Perhaps Margot had broken free from her captor somehow. She ran, and he chased after her. He caught up to her, and he killed her.

And there was something else, something inside the grave that was even odder. The white sweater Margot was last seen in had been folded in half and placed with precision over her face, almost like it was done with consideration and care.

Why would the killer bother?

Perhaps he planned to return, to visit her again.

As we huddled around the burial site, we stood silent, taking a moment to honor her life.

Silas removed a few tools from his kit, and while we waited for the rest of his team to arrive, he gave us instructions on how we could assist him in the meantime. It wasn’t long before the sun dipped behind the mountainside, the daylight ebbing with each passing moment.

My thoughts turned to Rae and Bronte—and how much I’d hoped for a different outcome than the one presented to us now. There was nothing easy about a mother losing a child in this manner, and there never would be. Now would be a time of grief, a time of pain, but one day I hoped Rae and Bronte would find a way to heal.

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