Vanishing

11.

Fisher

Present Day

I fall into bed beside my wife and take a steady breath.

"What are you thinking, Fish?" She asks, running her hand over my forehead.

"This week is going to be anything but a fucking vacation." I mutter shaking my head.

"I know." She grips my hand and sighs. Leaning her forehead on my shoulder seeking comfort.

"Brody looks like he is in his fifties. All that alcohol." I state.

"It has not been easy for him I imagine. Life just never really went back to normal. There was a lot of questions."

"Lindsey seems good though. Yes?" I turn to face her, and she smiles softly.

"Maybe. She deserves to be."

Understatement of the century. When everything came out into the open there was not one person left unscathed. The police exploited every single crack in our lives and let the wounds seep out into public.

Most of us were lucky, we were underage, and our parents could keep our names out of it. Lindsey was not so lucky. Her parents were meth addicts her entire life. When everything was out about Brody cheating and her parents arrest, Lindsey vanished without a trace.

We were led to believe that she was pulled from school by the state and moved somewhere else. That was until Catherine told me the truth.

I cringe thinking about it.

Lindsey had tried to commit suicide and when the police came to arrest her parents for manufacturing meth they found Lindsey. As she was underage, she became a ward of the state and was placed in the psych ward until she turned eighteen.

That was the last thing we knew about her. We could not visit her for fear someone would find out and exploit it. Lindsey had been through enough. She deserved her peace after she crawled out of hell. Do I think and want to believe she is doing well? Absolutely.

Do I see the weight of the last ten years on her shoulders and the empty look in her eyes? Yes. I see it in my own and Catherine's as well.

That night ripped into us and left us to lick our wounds in more ways than Cynthia just disappearing. It was three years of hell. Being questioned, followed, harped on by reporters. It ruined friendships. It destroyed lives.

For what?

In the end it was another case that would remain unsolved until someone stumbled upon something big enough to get It reopened and in a small town like this, that was never likely to happen.

Whatever happened that night stayed in those woods. Someone got away with murder, or worse. And they knew it...