Chapter 4 - A Year of Nothing
For weeks, people combed that lake. Volunteers walked the woods in lines. Divers went down near the dock. Police knocked on every cabin door and every house along the access road.
Nothing.
Her phone never pinged a single tower. Her belongings sat in an evidence bag. Not one person had seen which way she went.
I drove back to that campground three more times on my own, like the lake might tell me something if I just stood there long enough.
Back home, after the detectives had already been through her room, I went through it again myself — every drawer, every notebook, the space under her mattress — hating my own hands for touching her private things.
That's when I noticed the scratches.
Little silver gouges in the wood around the lock on my dresser drawer.
I opened it.
The folder was gone.
I sat down right there on the bedroom floor with the empty drawer hanging open and my hand pressed over my mouth.
She'd known.
Or she'd found enough to know I'd been lying to her, her whole life.
Even then, I wouldn't let myself finish the thought. I wouldn't let myself believe my daughter had left me to grieve on purpose.
A year went by like that.
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On the anniversary of the trip, I was sitting at the kitchen table with her last lake photo propped against the salt shaker when someone knocked on the door.
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