I could barely breathe.
Dana opened the bag.
She moved aside sunglasses.
Sunscreen.
A wallet.
A paperback.
Then she reached into a narrow inner pocket and pulled out a clear plastic sleeve.
Inside was a photograph.
My hands started trembling before she even passed it to me.
Gia.
Older.
Not much older.
Maybe eighteen.
Maybe nineteen.
Her hair was shorter.
Her face thinner.
She was sitting on the steps of a porch with her knees pulled toward her chest.
And she was smiling.
Really smiling.
I covered my mouth.
“Oh, God.”
For sixteen years, I had imagined every possible horror.
Hospital rooms.
Roadsides.
Graves.
Locked houses.
But there she was.
Alive after she disappeared.
I turned the photograph over.
In blue ink were two words.
Still here.
I knew the handwriting immediately.
Gia’s.
Dana whispered, “I should have turned it in. I didn’t know.”
I couldn’t answer.
