//------------------------------//
// Chapter 07 
// Story: Long Road Home 
// by BlackSkulls 
//------------------------------//

"And in other news: The case of the missing child Clara Wilkes still has investigators stumped. The seven year old disappeared from her home just before she was to be in bed, according to her mother. She has been missing for nearly a month, with no new leads on where she might be. If anyone has any information about her whereabouts, please contact the police station at the number displayed on the screen--"

The screen clicked black. A woman sat on a couch with her head in her hands, next to her a man holding the television remote. He gently rubbed the woman's back to console her.

"We'll find her." He muttered. "I promise we'll bring Clara home."

The woman slowly straightened herself up, and he could see that her eyes were red and her cheeks were stained with tears. She let out a soft sniffle as she wiped the remaining tears away with the heel of her hand. The man could see just how much the woman was like her missing daughter--their missing daughter--in how big their hearts were.

"It's been nearly a month! And there have been no leads whatsoever. It's as if she just...vanished. I--" She hiccuped as more tears began to form. "I just don't understand. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. We ate dinner, and then I sent her to bed. I heard her scream and...and she was just gone."

Tears started flowing again as her ex-husband held her close. He didn't say anything, but just held her until she cried herself to sleep. He started at the blank TV screen, wondering just what happened to his little girl.





The next morning, Clara's mother was sitting in a white investigation room at the police station. She had been called in once or twice to be investigated, but most of the time she had been there to be the investigator. She wanted to know what happened to her little girl, even if it meant going to the station to get information from the police.

Two investigators filed into the room. She knew them well since she first filed a missing child report. Detective Long, small and petite, but able to hold her own just as well as any other officer. Detective Dumont, the complete opposite of his partner, in terms of looks and personality. The first time the three met they played an excellent victim's rendition of "Good Cop, Bad Cop"--Dumont comforting the distraught mother, and Long asking repeatedly if she remembered anything vital.

But that morning the tables had turned. She was there to get information from them. She demanded to be part of every step of the investigation process for her daughter. Gone were the tears that rolled down her cheeks the previous night, and there sat a Momma Bear with unmatched determination to bring her cub home.

"Detective Dumont, Detective Long," She greeted as the two of them sat opposite, looking rather exhausted. "Have there been any updates to where my little girl is?"

Dumont couldn't help but sigh. "Ms. Wilkes, it's the same as every other time. We are trying to find your daughter, but coming to us every few days isn't helping us at all. In fact, it's halting the investigation quite a bit. Besides, it's been nearly a month and we haven't found anything..." He trailed off, avoiding the mother's eyes by looking down at the table.

"What my partner means..." Long said, picking up the conversation. "Is that-- Unfortunately, your daughter-- ...Might have passed away. We are, and shall continue, to try and turn up any clues. But it's been nearly a month, and there have been no clues, no suspects, nothing out of the ordinary. Your daughter's bedroom is spotless. If someone had been in and out of that bedroom, they did a very good job or hiding their trail. We are going to do everything we can to bring her home, but like my partner says, it's been nearly a month. In these Child Abduction cases, they don't survive past a few days."

There was dead silence in the room. Three sets of eyes met each other in silent horror as to what might have become of the seven-year-old girl. The two policemen didn't mean to be so blunt, they were trained to break bad news as delicately as possible. Yet they spoke to a mother of her possibly-deceased daughter in the worst way possible.

Once she was over the initial shock, tears once again started to roll down Clara's mother's cheeks. One, then two, then several continued to drip onto the wooden table. She let out a choked sob. "It...it can't be true. Clara is alive, she has to be. I... I refuse to believe that she...she's..." The grown woman choked out another sob and hit her face with her hands.

The two officers glanced sadly at each other and stood. "We'll give you a few minutes alone, Ms. Wilkes."

The door clicked softly behind them, leaving the poor mother alone with the thought that her only child might be dead.





It was a beautiful morning, but there was nothing but sadness in one of the many classrooms at the elementary school. The time before first bell was always chaotic. It was the time to get all the rowdiness out of one's system before they were forced to sit and learn for the next couple hours, as the next break they had to go crazy was lunch then recess. But that morning, the classroom that was normally filled with noise was strangely quiet.

When Clara had first been absent, nothing had been thought of it. Every child missed school a couple days out of the semester. When she had missed a week, the other children assumed some sort of emergency happened within her family. When she missed two and a half weeks, they assumed she had been sick. When she missed nearly a month, they knew something happened to their friend and classmate.

It was especially hard on Clara's close friends. As time passed and they grew more worried, they withdrew from the other classmates. The teacher saw how Clara's absence was affecting the rest of her students and, against the curriculum, tried to band the students together to somewhat fill the void the seven-year-old left. It had worked for a time, but there was only so much a teacher could do.

Even with contacting the principal and Clara's mother, the teacher didn't receive any information about why Clara wasn't at school. There were always excuses, a lot of "She will be back in a few days, I know it" from her mother, but nothing concrete. Nearly a month passed, and the teacher had nothing to tell the other children about where their classmate was.

And it was tearing the poor children apart. All the teacher could do was hope and pray that Clara was alright, and that she would return soon to bring everything back to normal.