But this was his responsibility. It was sitting on his shoulders. Late in the evening of the day she went missing, Carrie Montgomery had shown him a picture of Violet. It was just a candid Polaroid image snapped that morning while she played, but it was enough to connect him to the tiny girl who seemed to have vanished while camping with her family.
The picture caught her in mid-laugh, the sun glowing in her bright blue eyes. Those eyes never left Ray's mind. Her little mouth was tinged blue by the ice pop she was eating. It stood out to him, a reminder of what it really was to be a carefree child. The sweetness of an ice pop cold on her lips, bringing down the temperature of a morning spent swimming and playing. What felt like an endless stretch of life packed into the hours before lunch.
When they’d first seen that picture, he’d hoped there would be many more for Violet. Many more good mornings getting the first hint of summer sunburn on the tips of her shoulders. Many more ice pops right after breakfast. Many more laughs. He wanted to be the one to find her so she could have those again.
But as the hours ticked further into the night, the imagined images he carried in his mind faded away. He didn't want them to. He struggled to hold on to them, to keep them where they were. If he could keep envisioning her getting back to her family and continuing the trip, it could happen.
He couldn't stop thinking that way. If he stopped, he was giving up on her. He wouldn't let that happen.
That moment of laughter brought him into the woods every day. The campground sat in the middle of a sprawling park made up of broken, age-weathered mountains and stretches of trees so thick their shadows hadn't fallen on a human face in more than a century.
For those willing to venture deep enough and look hard enough into the thick shade and plant-tangled ground, there were the signs of those who had walked that way before. Not the hikers and campers. Not the photographers looking for the perfect image, or the transients looking for a place to exit. Or even the wandering looking for themselves.
Beneath the footsteps of all of them were those of the people who’d called these mountains home generations ago. Brave, proud, industrious people who stayed strong in their homes and their way of life even as the world changed around them. Those who took the time to walk the mountains might find themselves stepping into the midst of those lives.
They never really ended. They just became part of the mountain again.
Ruins of homes became like the rocks scattered across the ground. Some were gone completely, leaving only stone steps leading to nothing. Walkways and paths, once foot-worn, were given back over to the forest. They could only barely be seen if a person knew exactly where to look.
Then there were the graves.
They appeared like the ruins. Like the stones and the pads. These weren't sweeping cemeteries contained within wrought iron or carefully manicured. There were no smooth marble markers with clear inscriptions.
Nothing separated the dead from the living. Some were together in small clusters: families who stayed together or generations who merely died together. Some were on their own, the houses that once would have stood by no longer visible. Markers made up of rough stone and slate, or even just large rocks, delineated these pieces of ground from all the others.
But so many of the names were no longer visible. The outlines of the graves had blended into everything around them. As unsettling as it could be for some to turn a corner or walk over a ridge and come up on one of the graves, it was very easy to get comfortable with them.
People saw the stones. They saw the dates if the numbers were still there to see. Maybe a name or even just a few letters. They knew the rough markers represented what had been there before, but it was easy to forget that beneath each stone lay a body. That they weren't just walking in the footsteps of the dead, but trodding directly over them.
For many who came to these woods to hike the trails and camp among the trees, it never occurred to them to think that, when they spread their sleeping bags on the ground at night, they could be lying just feet above where someone else rested. So close they could reach their hands down and take hold of the ones beneath them.
Not this burial place, though.
This one would never be that way.
"What do you have?"
He crossed long, adamant strides to the tape cutting through the trees with. The yellow barrier was garish against the lush summer flourish of the woods. It stood out even more under the cloud cover that only worked to highlight the harsh color.
"A backcountry camper came out here to spend the night. Apparently, he heard there was a small cavern up this way. Because of the rain coming, he was hoping to find some shelter. When he came up here, he thought he saw the cavern in that rock outcropping, so he went into it. That's where he found it."
The detective didn't stop plodding through the woods, forcing the younger officer to fall into step beside him and follow as he made his way to the yellow tape. He grabbed onto the tape, pushing away with such force that he almost ripped it down from the tree. He knew what he was going to find in the cavern. He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to see it. And at the same time, he couldn't keep himself away.
He knew if
