The world moved strangely in the days after Emily's body was found. Time didn't pass; it limped.Silence had become a living thing inside the Hayes home,a presence that settled in the corners, heavy and unyielding. The TV stayed off, the blinds half-drawn, the air still carrying the faint scent of her perfume from the coat she'd left behind.
Mrs. Hayes sat at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone cold. She stared at her daughter's photo the one from her first day at college. Emily's grin was bright and unguarded, her hair tossed by the wind. Mr. Hayes stood at the sink, pretending to wash dishes just to avoid turning around. They hadn't spoken much in days, each lost in the unspoken question neither wanted to ask aloud:
How could this have happened?
The knock on the door startled them both.
Detective Marla Greene stood there, rainwater dripping from her coat. Her eyes were steady professional, but not unkind.
"I'm sorry to come unannounced," she said. "I thought it might be better to talk in person."
Mrs. Hayes gestured for her to come in. "Did you find something?" Her voice cracked on the last word.
Detective Greene sat across from them, notebook open. "We're still piecing things together. I won't pretend we have answers yet. But I wanted to keep you updated."
She slid a printed map across the table. A red circle marked the area near the baseball field.
"This is where Emily was last seen. Several witnesses confirm she was walking toward the athletics complex around 8:30 that evening. She didn't appear to be in distress. We're still reviewing footage, but… there are some gaps in the recordings that night."
"Gaps?" Mr. Hayes frowned. "What do you mean, gaps?"
"The campus cameras went offline for about twenty minutes due to a system error. It's probably nothing but the timing is unusual."
Mrs. Hayes stared at the map, tracing the red circle with her finger.
"She was going to meet someone, wasn't she?"
Detective Greene didn't answer immediately. "We think she might have. There are messages on her phone we're still trying to recover encrypted ones, possibly deleted. We'll know more soon."
Mrs. Hayes' hands began to tremble. "So she didn't just… walk there for no reason."
"No," Greene said softly. "Emily was smart. She knew something or someone was waiting for her."
For a long moment, no one spoke. The sound of the rain outside filled the silence.
Then Mrs. Hayes asked, "Have you talked to that boy? The one who was always with her the baseball player?"
"Liam," Greene said. She glanced at her notes. "Yes. He came in voluntarily. Cooperative, polite. Claimed they were just friends, that he hadn't seen her that day. But…" She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "There were small inconsistencies. Nothing solid yet, but enough to keep him on my radar."
Mrs. Hayes' jaw clenched. "He didn't come to the funeral."
Greene looked up. "No?"
"No," she said quietly. "Everyone else from her team did. But not him."
The detective wrote that down without comment. "Sometimes guilt hides behind grief," she said softly.
That night, after Detective Greene left, Mrs. Hayes sat alone in Emily's room. Everything was as her daughter had left it notebooks stacked neatly, photos taped above the desk, a half-written paper on the laptop still open.
She scrolled through Emily's messages again, searching for clues. Most were normal friends, class updates, reminders. Then she saw a short exchange from the week before Emily's death:
Emily: I can't stop thinking about it.
Unknown contact: Then don't. Forget it.
Emily: I can't. He needs help.
The messages ended there. No name. No number saved. Just a blank contact.
Mrs. Hayes sat frozen, rereading the words until her vision blurred.
He needs help.
Her heart sank.
She whispered into the empty room, "What did you see, Emily?"
Two days later, she visited the campus. It felt like walking into another world,laughter in the courtyards, music echoing from dorm windows, life going on as if nothing had happened.
She passed a bulletin board covered in photos of Emily "In Loving Memory" printed above smiling snapshots. Students had left flowers, notes, even baseballs signed with messages like We miss you, Em.
Mrs. Hayes traced her daughter's face with her fingers. "You didn't belong in this world of games," she murmured.
When she turned, she froze.
Across the field, Liam stood in uniform, talking with his coach. Even from a distance, he looked exactly as people described confident, handsome, composed. He laughed at something the coach said, easy and natural.
But when he glanced in her direction, their eyes met and for a moment, his expression changed. A flicker of panic, quickly masked by a polite smile.
Her stomach turned.
He jogged off toward the dugout, and she stood there, staring after him. The sun caught the edge of his bat, flashing bright and sharp just like the image she'd seen in her nightmares.
When she got home that evening, she called Detective Greene.
"Detective?"
"Yes, Mrs. Hayes?"
"I saw him today. That boy."
"Liam?"
"Yes." She hesitated, her voice tightening. "There's something about him. The way he looked at me, it wasn't grief. It was fear."
Greene was quiet for a moment. "I'll make sure to keep him close," she said.
Then, almost to herself, she added, "Sometimes it's not what people say that gives them away. It's what they can't look at."
That night, Mrs. Hayes sat by Emily's window, the house silent around her. She watched the rain streak down the glass, remembering how her daughter used to love storms how she'd stand outside just to feel the water on her skin. It has been raining for some days now,she knew Emily would have loved it.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled.
Mrs. Hayes whispered into the dark, "I'll find out what happened to you, baby. I promise."
And though she couldn't hear it, far across town, Liam was lying awake in his dorm bed staring at the ceiling, heart pounding whispering almost the same words:
I can't let them find out.