❝ Some things scratch at the surface while others strike at your soul. ❞
𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 her whole life to catching the monsters in this world in hopes of fixing something that is broken inside of her.
Tha...
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"Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done. "
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴
10.2 ; FRUIT OF THE POISON TREE.
THE MOMENT THE DOOR opened, the flashing lights of cameras and reporters' jumbled voices asking a million questions assaulted the Copelands. JJ motioned for the two parents to join her on the dais in front of the room full of reporters. They immediately obeyed as they took their positions behind JJ, who was standing at the podium. The local minister stood beside them, whispering small prayers for Billie's safety.
From what Caroline could see from her position near the stage, she counted five news channels filming, twelve reporters from various local stations and three national stations present in small press room. She couldn't imagine how overwhelmed the parents felt with all the cameras flashing and clicking in their faces. She glanced down and checked her phone, sighing when she saw that there were no messages from Spencer.
Please don't let it be Billie, she pleaded in her mind, please let her be alive.
"Can I have everyone's attention?" JJ announced into the microphone. Her magnified voice swept over the crowd of reporters. "Please, if you could just take your seats..." The press liaison waited as the room went silent, focusing all the cameras on her. "The Copeland family is here to make an appeal. As you all know, their 11-year-old daughter Billie is missing. So if you could just have a little compassion and patience."
JJ stepped aside from the podium and gently motioned the stiff parents behind her to move forward. "Mr. and Ms. Copeland."
As Caroline watched Billie's parents shuffle to the dais, she felt a stab of guilt. What if Billie was dead? What if the body they found at the lake really was the missing girl? That would mean that they were putting her parents through this mess, a media circus, for nothing. She didn't even have the common decency to warn the parents that they even found a body.
It just felt so wrong. A little girl shouldn't be found dead in the bottom of the lake. She should be playing soccer and spending time with her family.
She still had so much of her life left to live. She couldn't be dead.
"Yesterday—" Mr. Copeland cleared his throat, his eyes shifting nervously over the the room full of cameras. "Yesterday, at approximately 3 P.M., my daughter—our daughter—Belinda Copeland, Billie, went missing from the recreation center. We are looking for a man, a witness, in a green SUV."
