Finding Charlie

The Unanswered Question

The storm had finally passed, but the air remained thick with the scent of wet earth and damp foliage. The sky, once a dark, brooding gray, now stretched in an endless expanse of blue, offering a chilling contrast to the grim scene by the river. Grace stood motionless, her feet sinking into the sodden ground as the police officers worked around her. She barely registered their movements, her mind still reeling from the gut-wrenching moment she had seen her son's lifeless body pulled from the creek.

But now, as the team continued to examine Charlie, something strange was beginning to stir in the air-a tension, a wrongness, something that Grace couldn't put into words but felt deep in her bones.

She hadn't expected this-she hadn't wanted to expect it-but she had thought they would pull Charlie from the river and he would be cold, still, but lifeless. The storm had carried him, after all. The current had been strong. It was the perfect storm for something to go wrong, for a tragedy to strike. But Grace had been wrong. So wrong.

Something wasn't adding up.

Grace was still standing there, her hands wrapped around the shirt Charlie had worn when they last saw him, when she heard the voices-low and murmuring, and then the sharp call of Deputy Harris. His voice was urgent, but with an undercurrent of disbelief that sent a cold chill down her spine.

"Get the coroner over here, now!" Deputy Harris barked. "We need a team forensics. This isn't what it looks like."

Grace's heart stopped.

She wasn't sure whether it was the desperation in his voice or the sudden shift in the air, but she felt something deep inside her snap. She was no longer standing in a rain-soaked field. She was here, with her son's body-her living son's body. But how could that be? How could he have been alive all this time and then-?

But then her mind snapped to something else. Her thoughts leapt to the last moments she had seen him. The letters. He had written to her, begged her not to look for him. He had disappeared-had he been hiding, running from something or someone? Had he been alive after all? Or had it been something more sinister?

Grace's thoughts scattered as she heard footsteps behind her. She turned quickly, her voice caught in her throat.

"What happened to him?" she demanded, rushing toward Deputy Harris, her voice breaking. "What do you mean, it isn't what it looks like? What-what are you saying? Tell me!"

Harris didn't meet her eyes. His face was pale, his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at the body, and then at the others gathering around it.

"There's something off," he said, his voice low, almost to himself. "I need answers. This doesn't make sense."

Grace's knees went weak. She felt the earth shifting beneath her, the ground turning to jelly, her thoughts spinning. She wanted to reach for Charlie, to pull him back, but there was something stopping her, something she didn't understand.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

Deputy Harris finally turned to face her, his face grim. "Mrs. Miller, the coroner's going to need to confirm it, but..."

He stopped and rubbed his hand across his face, trying to process what he had just seen.

But it was the other officers who were now speaking up, their voices sharp with disbelief.

"He's not cold," one of the officers said, his voice tremulous. "Not like he should be. And... look at his hands. They're bruised. This isn't from the river."

Another officer, a younger woman, stepped forward, her eyes wide as she looked over Charlie's body. She frowned as she looked down at the back of his neck.