I Heard Their Hearts Before Mine Stopped Chapter 05

I Heard Their Hearts Before Mine Stopped Chapter 05

Inside the waterproof bag lay a soaked Colorado state ID with my photo and the name “Lena Foster.”

Next to it lay my waterlogged black phone, which would not turn on, and a prescription bottle.

The bottle was dented from pressure, but the pharmacy label for Mom’s stomach medication was still readable.

The moment Mom saw the bottle, her voice cut off.

Her mind went blank. Her hands flailed in the air, and she collapsed into Dad’s arms.

Gavin stared hard at the bottle, breathing heavily.

He turned to Sadie. “Sadie, didn’t you say last night in the tent that Lena stole Mom’s medicine to punish her? Why was it in her pocket?”

Sadie’s face drained of color. She shrank behind Owen, voice barely a whisper.

“I… I was just guessing. I thought if she took the medicine she’d come back to the shelter. How was I supposed to know she’d do something like this? It’s not my fault.”

Owen ignored Sadie’s tugging.

He moved slowly toward the body, bent down, and lifted a corner of the plastic sheet with a trembling hand.

As the covering peeled back, my body lay exposed after a full night in the icy river.

—

Mud and withered grass tangled in my hair. My face was a sickly bluish-purple, skin swollen from the water.

My eyes were closed tight. They would never open again. I would never hear their thoughts again.

Owen’s hand dropped. His knees gave out, and he fell to his knees in the weed-covered mud.

He slapped himself hard across the face.

“Lena, I saw you last night.” Owen’s voice shook as he buried his face in his knees. “If I had only pulled you into the kayak… just once…”

Dad pushed Mom out of his arms and stumbled toward my body.

He reached out with rough hands to wipe the mud from my face, but the more he wiped, the more the bluish skin stood out.

“Lena, Daddy’s here. I brought your favorite cake. It’s waiting at the door.” He pressed his face to my cold, stiff arm, tears falling into the mud.

“Get up and have one bite. Daddy will never scold you again. Please come home with Daddy, all right?”

I floated above them, watching coldly as they all cried.

The air smelled only of wet earth after rain and their useless, belated sobs.

Sharp sirens cut through the morning quiet.

Two white police cars stopped on the riverbank. Officers and the county medical examiner set up crime scene tape.

—

The medical examiner crouched beside my body for a preliminary examination.

He pressed on my neck and chest, then stood and spoke to the recorder.

“Floodwater and debris were found in the stomach. The body had multiple blunt-force injuries, but the findings were consistent with drowning. Death occurred between ten and eleven last night, about twenty minutes after the first rescue boats left.”

Dad, sitting on a bench nearby, jerked his head up. His eyes were bloodshot.

Ten-thirty last night was exactly when Owen had paddled back looking for the bracelet.

An officer approached Owen with a notebook. “At around ten thirty last night, a resident saw you alone in a kayak downstream. Did you see Lena Foster in the water?”

Owen knelt in the mud, clothes filthy, a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth.

He did not look up. “I saw her. She was holding on to a wooden board.”