Part Three: Reopening the Search
The investigator read my father’s confession twice.
Hunter waited outside the office while I sat across from the same man who had once promised to bring Abigail home.
“This changes the search area,” he finally said.
“It changes the entire investigation.”
“We still need to confirm what your father wrote.”
“Then confirm it.”
He pointed to a section of the second page.
“The drainage system extends beneath several streets. Some parts have not been opened in years.”
I leaned forward.
“If my father had told you the truth that night, would you have searched the channel before the rain started?”
“Crystal—”
“Answer me.”
He hesitated.
“Yes. We would have searched it immediately.”
My fingers tightened around the arms of the chair.
“Then reopen my daughter’s case.”
“I’ll submit the necessary request.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t give me official language. Tell me what you are going to do today.”
He picked up the phone.
“I’ll contact the search team. I’ll also arrange access to the surrounding properties.”
“And the unfinished barrier?”
“We’ll determine who owned it, who authorized the repairs, and why the work was never completed.”
I stood.
“Call me before anyone enters that channel.”
The investigator’s expression became serious.
“This confession will eventually become public.”
“Abigail’s face has been public for five years.”
“Some members of your family may try to protect your father’s reputation.”
I placed the copied pages on his desk.
“My father no longer needs protection. My daughter does.”
Hunter drove me home in silence.
When we reached my driveway, he turned off the engine but did not open his door.
“The investigator is right,” he said. “Your relatives won’t accept this easily.”
“They don’t have to accept it.”
“They’ll say your father was dying. They’ll say the guilt punished him enough.”
“He wasn’t dying when he lied.”
“I know.”
“He let me sit beside his bed every day and tell him Abigail’s disappearance wasn’t his fault.”
Hunter stared through the windshield.
“Are you ready for everyone to know?”
“No.”
He turned toward me.
“But I’m going to tell the truth anyway,” I continued. “Loving him doesn’t make what he did harmless.”
Hunter nodded slowly.
“He carried that guilt until the day he died.”
“He carried guilt,” I said. “I carried hope.”
The words seemed to fill the entire car.
Hope had made me answer every call from an unknown number.
Hope had sent Hunter and me driving across state lines whenever someone claimed to have seen a little girl resembling Abigail.
Hope had kept her bedroom untouched.
It had filled my closet with birthday presents she never opened because part of me believed she would return older, taller, and ready to tell us where she had been.
My father’s guilt had tormented him.
But his lie had controlled all of us.
Hunter looked down at his hands.
“He was still your father.”
“And Abigail is still our daughter.”
“I know.”
I opened the car door but paused before getting out.
“I will not protect his memory by keeping her story buried.”
Hunter reached toward the confession in my lap, then stopped.
“What do you need from me?”
“Come inside. The investigator may call.”
This time, I did not ask him to wait outside.
