“I’m sorry to have to ask questions at such a difficult time, but the more information we have, the better the odds of us catching this guy,” Evan said to Shelby and Eric Markham.
Their ranch-style home was clean but showed the clutter of a family rarely at home. Shoes were piled haphazardly near the door and a stack of mail had spilled across the coffee table. The sofa and matching chairs were from two decades ago, the brown floral pattern partially hidden by colorful throw blankets. Max and Evan each sat in one of the chairs while Esha’s parents clung to each other on the sofa.
“We’ll do our best,” Eric said. “Esha was a little wild, but she was a good kid. Never got into anything stronger than weed or beer, didn’t sleep around…she had been applying to colleges for next year.”
“She wanted to be a journalist. Travel the world and write stories about what she got to see,” Shelby said.
Eric was tall and lean with muscular arms, short salt and pepper hair, and a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee. His eyes were red from tears, but he’d pulled himself together enough to talk to them. Shelby was still in her scrubs from her job as a nurse at the local hospital. She wore a light blue sweater over the dark blue scrubs, and her pixie-cut hair was all white, tangled, and stuck up from her hands running through it. She looked like someone had punched her in the face from the shadows and swelling around her eyes. Grief destroyed everyone with its first touch, and these two people were no exception.
“Are you sure it’s our girl?” Eric asked as his voice cracked on the words.
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