Page 13 of The Vanished

“Emma,” Quinn called out but got no response. “Emma.”

It was only when she walked to the center of the room and waved her hand in front of Emma’s face that her daughter finally noticed her. She pushed the headphones back until they were around her neck, and Quinn heard a faint beat since the music was still on.

“Hi, Mum. Where’ve you been?”

“I went to see Colin Scott.”

“About that dead lady?”

“Yes.”

Quinn settled across from Emma and studied her serious face. Once, a long time ago, Emma had expressed her reservations about what her parents did for a living, and the conversation had stayed with Quinn. Emma’s birth mother and grandmother had died when Emma was three. She never spoke of them these days, but Quinn knew that she still missed the two women who had been her only family before the accident that had taken both their lives. Emma slept easier at night knowing that their remains had not been disturbed or analyzed by individuals who saw them as nothing more than an opportunity to further their knowledge. She felt they deserved to be left in peace.

“Do you mind that she will be shown on television?” Quinn asked.

“A little, yeah,” Emma replied. “I wouldn’t want that done to me.”

“She’s a lot older than you.”

“By how much?”

“About ten years,” Quinn replied.

Ten years was a lot to a twelve-year-old, but in reality it was nothing, the blink of an eye in the timeline of a world that had existed for billions of years.

“And you think that makes it all right?” Emma asked, sounding more like a middle-aged woman than a carefree tween.

Did she think it was all right? Quinn asked herself. Would she want her remains laid on a slab, dissected, and then shown on television? Probably not. But if she had been murdered, she’d want someone to find her killer and hold them responsible, even if they could no longer be prosecuted for their crime.

“Colin thinks she was murdered, Em,” Quinn said. “Does that change how you feel?”

Emma looked thoughtful. And sad. “Do you know her name?”

“Not yet.”

“And she was about twenty-two?”

“Thereabouts.”

Emma nodded and sighed with her whole being. “I hate that she has no say in what will be done to her, but I would want someone to find my killer if that happened to me.”

“Does that mean I have your blessing?”

Quinn hadn’t planned to ask when she’d accepted Rhys’s offer, but she suddenly realized that it meant the world to have Emma’s understanding. At seven and almost nine, Mia and Alex were too young to care about someone they’d never known. And Gabe supported her without reservation. Emma was the wild card, and she was even more sensitive since losing both Phoebe and Sylvia so recently.

“Will you leave her alone if you don’t have it?” Emma asked.

“If it means that much to you, then yes,” Quinn said.

And she meant it. Rhys would never understand or support her decision, but he was a grown man focused on ratings and profit. Emma’s feelings meant so much more and were the only ones that truly mattered.

“Do it, Mum,” Emma said. “She deserves justice, even if the person who murdered her is probably long gone. At the very least she will get her name back. And maybe she had family. Do you think they might still be alive?”

“That depends on when she lived. Colin wasn’t able to date the remains.”

“So you think she might have died during the Iron Age or something?”

“Probably not that far back, but maybe a few hundred years ago. Or maybe she lived recently and her family is still searching for her. We think she was married. Or engaged.”