Chapter Sixty-Seven
The moment one of the workers called out they’d found something was surreal.
Isla’s heart plummeted to her stomach. This was the moment she’d waited ten years for and the moment she’d also dreaded.
The many overhead lights were so bright, they chased away the cool of night and made it look like it was daylight.
A silent hush went over the crowd as the people on top helped the workers in the hole climb out without disturbing anything inside.
They stepped back, keeping a respectful distance.
Seeing that they’d stopped, Victor rushed to the edge, Isla by his side, with Myles and Dixon returning.
Sometime during the digging Holland had appeared, her clothes changed from the reception.
She’d looked horrible, having gotten the news about everything that had transpired at the site, of her mother and Bennett being detained by the police and about Jackson and the search for him.
She didn’t approach the hole, standing back to watch anxiously.
Victor took halting steps toward the edge.
He took a breath. And then another, steadying himself.
If he felt anything similar to what Isla was feeling as they got closer and closer, each step forward harder to take, Victor was praying the hole was empty, that the dream he’d had for the past ten years of his daughter living her life happily as she wanted it was true.
He leaned forward, inhaling particles of dirt, and looked in.
Even in the dark, the glint of gold and the locket attached to it shone brilliantly like a beacon.
It was as if it hadn’t spent the last ten years beneath the dirt.
He crumpled to the ground, but Isla’s feet were rooted, the image of the tattered clothing and brittle remains of Victor’s cherished daughter and Isla’s best friend searing themselves in her mind.
“That’s her mother’s necklace,” he sobbed. He couldn’t look away. He didn’t deserve to see anything but what had become of Eden. “Elise, what have I done to our girl?”
“Eden started wearing it when her mom died,” Isla explained as verification that the body in the hole was indeed Eden Corrigan.
Isla was unable to see well through the tears falling.
She barely got her words out. “Eden was wearing the locket chain and her own bracelet with the key together when I saw her last, getting into Roger’s Jeep. ”
Victor was inconsolable, suddenly screaming, “Get my daughter out of there! Get her out. She can’t be there. She can’t have been there in the cold all this time. How could they have done this to her? How could they have done this to my little girl?”
The realization was too much for Victor, and he clutched his chest, teetering precariously over the edge. Myles got to him in time, grabbing his father before he could fall. Isla got there next. Then Dixon. The three of them holding the strongest man they’d ever known in his weakest moment.