Page 82 of A Forgotten Mistake

“I understand that you’re distraught,” Gabriel says to her. “First your mother goes missing and then this. You suddenly feel very alone and like you have no one to talk to, right?”

“He’s a really good dad,” she responds, voice shaky. “He’s always been such a good dad. I just… he wouldn’t be involved in something like that. He wouldn’t join some plan to murder… to murder a family.”

“He wasn’t in it to kill my parents. He was in it for the money. But he was old enough to realize that when you get caught up in something like that, you never know what’s going to happen or who is going to die… or who is going to get caught,” I tell her.

“I can’t lose my dad. You could like… drop the charges, right?” she asks.

“Let’s stay focused,” Michaels orders. “All of this is for the police and the law to deal with. Good people sometimes do bad things, but we can’t look the other way just because they’re a good person. For now, let’s stay focused.”

Rachel seems even more upset now. I notice the tears are making an appearance, and tears make me feel icky. She’d somehow gotten closer to me during our conversation, so I put Gabriel between us, confident that he can shield me from having to see her blubbering and snotting. Really, she should just be happy that Gabriel kept me from dicing up her dear ol’ daddy.

The temptation is still there, but I tamp it down.

“This kind of looks like the spot,” Matthew announces, referring to the photo he’d taken a picture of with his phone.Something I probably should have done but chose not to because I was too distracted.

“Matthew, sometimes you do smart things that creep me out,” I say as I grab his phone to take a look for myself.

“Oh… glad I could please you,” he retorts sarcastically.

I turn to the young woman, pleased to see she’s wiped a bit of that stuff all over her face away. “You call your mother ‘Mom’?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell your dog to find ‘Mom.’”

“He’s not… like a trained dog.”

“Dogs are smart. If he smells her out here, he’s going to go looking for her. What do we have to lose?”

She shrugs and unhooks his leash. “Puppins, find Mom.”

Puppins starts sniffing around—probably looking for a new name—and I have absolutely no idea if he just smells a rabbit who shat here two days ago or something of interest. While we leave him to that, I wander around a bit trying to find any signs of something. This was a pretty far walk. He would have had to haul her quite a ways if he didn’t bring a vehicle, but the tire tracks in this area all seem to head toward the field beyond it.

“This could have been foundation,” Matthew says as he kicks something lost in the weeds.

“Good job. Look, Gabriel, Matthew is being ‘useful.’”

“Don’t get the fucking finger quotes out for that,” Matthew says. “Do you still want me to shoot you before Thanksgiving? I’m prepared.” He mutters that part quiet enough that Michaels can’t hear since he seems to think Michaels wouldn’t approve, though I’m confident he’d join in.

Puppins starts to whine, which he hasn’t done since this whole thing started. I glance over at the dog as he anxiously starts sniffing around, then I make sure to look Michaels in the eyes while grinning maniacally, in case he wants to tell me I’m right.

“Wipe that look off your face, Detective. We haven’t found her yet.”

“I can’t,” I say as the dog starts weaving back and forth, looking anxious and confused.

We move toward the dog, looking for whatever’s caught his attention. The dog seems absolutely fixated on the area, refusing to leave as he whines and sniffs.

Our group circles around the area where the dog is focused and starts searching the tall grass, which makes it hard to see anything on the ground.

“Here!” Gabriel says as he gives a light tug to something hidden in the grass.

“Hyde, can you stand with Rachel?” Michaels asks.

She looks panicked over the idea of stepping away. “W-Why? If she’s there?—”

Gabriel wraps a gentle arm around her to herd her back. “We have to give them room.”

“I want to?—”

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