The Echoing Silence

Previously

…Secrets. The bird. The ribbon. The footprint. The scratch marks. The pieces, once disparate fragments, were beginning to coalesce, hinting at a narrative far more complex, and far more terrifying, than a simple fall. Lily hadn't just fallen. She had been led here. Or perhaps, she had been pushed. And the silence that enveloped them, the echoing silence of her absence, was no longer just the silence of loss. It was the silence of a secret, a secret that was just beginning to reveal itself. He looked at the worn photograph of a different missing child in his pocket, the echo of another tragedy resonating in his heart. This time, he vowed, he wouldn't let the silence win.