Page 31 of Little Buried Secrets

“No, no, no, no, no …” she said.

“I’m so sorry, Rae. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to—”

She held up a hand in front of her.

“Stop. Just stop. I don’t want to believe it.” She looked down the hall, toward the kitchen. “I made Margot’s favorite dinner tonight. It’s sitting at her spot at the table, ready for her when she gets home. I keep telling myself she’s still coming home, and that she’s all right, and that we’ll be together again as a family.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

Knowing Margot wouldn’t return home for a meal tonight or any other night wasn’t something she was ready to hear yet.

Rae swayed from side to side, her legs buckling beneath her as she began sagging to the floor. I reached out, pulling her into my arms. An onslaught of tears followed, and for several minutes, I didn’t move. I just stood there, holding her, wishing I could do more, but knowing nothing I could do or say would ease her anguish.

I felt like a failure, even though I wasn’t sure what I’d failed at—maybe bringing Margot back home, alive—making the impossible possible?

I wondered if Bronte was at home, or Rae’s boyfriend, Grant.

If they were, I assumed they would have heard us by now.

After some time, Rae regained her composure and pulled back from my embrace.

“Where is she?” she asked. “Where is my daughter?”

“We don’t have to go over the details tonight, Rae,” I said. “I can come back tomorrow, first thing, if you want. There’s no rush.”

Rae shook her head. “I need to know. I’m going to find out anyway. It may as well be now.”

“We should sit down,” I suggested.

I followed Rae into the living room, taking a seat next to her on the sofa.

“I feel so empty,” she said. “It’s like all the air has been sucked out of my body. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I was sitting out on the front porch earlier and a bird landed on the porch railing. It perched there for the longest time, blinking at me. It was almost as if I could have reached out and touched it, and it would have allowed me to do so. I almost started talking to it if you can believe … like the bird was Margot. Sounds crazy, right?”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “Not to me.”

She took a deep breath in and said, “What have you come to tell me?”

“This morning, Giovanni and I decided to do some searching for Margot on our own. New areas. We stopped off at a few trails, and we were unsuccessful, and then we came across Sebastian.”

“What was he doing on the trails? I heard he’s been staying inside, not wanting to see or talk to anyone.”

“According to him, he’s been sneaking out at night, after the search parties have finished for the evening,” I said. “He claims he’s been looking for Margot.”

“And do you believe him?”

“I don’t know what to believe. When I found him, he was holding a shoe in his hand. When I got a closer look at it, I realized it matched the description of the ones Margot had been wearing the day she disappeared.”

“Why would Sebastian have Margot’s shoe?”

“He told me he’d found it in the same area we were searching. He showed me where, and I called Chief Foley. Foley came out with a handful of people from the police department. We split up and started searching. I was standing beside a creek, and I noticed a patch of dirt that looked different than the surrounding area. I walked over to check it out, and that’s when I … when I started digging and … I umm, I found—”

Rae slapped a hand over her mouth. “It was you? You found my baby girl?”

“It was me, yes.”

She threw her arms around me and said, “Thank you.”

The last thing I felt I deserved were words of appreciation. But I understood why she’d offered them. All too often missing persons were never found, leaving a gaping wound where loved ones couldn’t heal. And while the outcome wasn’t what any of us wanted, Margot could now be put to rest.

---