The Answers Are In The Forest by Katie Kaleski

Author:Katie Kaleski [Kaleski, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640345676
Publisher: Limitless Publishing, LLC
Published: 2019-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

***

Rusck and I sat side by side at computers in the school library so we could begin our research. We both skipped out on first period.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I said, thinking how morbid it was searching for missing and murdered children online.

“We should start with Donna. She was the first one to seek you out,” Rusck said, typing the name Donna into the search bar.

“We don’t even have a last name, anything.”

“But we have a year, we think, right? Sixty years ago. And the location. Well, that’s if she’s from here.” Rusck typed in missing children, Donna, 1958.

The screen filled with results. All children and people missing. The description on some said the body was found.

“This is so sad. Look at all of them.”

Rusck swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Try that one. It says Donna.” I pointed to one link toward the bottom of the computer screen. The article popped up, and so did the picture of the missing Donna.

“She looks too old,” I said, taking in the black and white photo of a girl wearing a cardigan and a big smile with ringlets that fell around her face.

“The article says she was fourteen.”

“Oh, gosh. This is going to wreck me.”

“Creed almost had the same fate as all of these kids listed,” Rusck whispered.

“Hey,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “But he didn’t, okay? And we’re going to help them all.” I had made a number of bad decisions in the past. For once, I’d make the right one and help those kids. Maybe people could see I wasn’t so bad after all.

Rusck licked his lips and clicked to the next page and the one after that.

“None of these kids are who we’re looking for. What about local newspapers?”

“I think ours is The Post Tribune.” Rusck pulled it up and found the archive page. He typed in the same information, and a whole list of articles came up, but then a new screen popped up in front of them. “Dammit. They want us to pay for access.”

“What kind of crap is that? I don’t have a credit card.”

“Neither do I, but let me ask the school librarian. Maybe they have access to some sort of archives.” Rusck got up to go ask, and I stared at the screen with all the sad stories. All those people out there, not knowing what happened to their missing children.

Rusck came back and dropped into his seat. “They don’t. She said we ought to be glad there’s even books and working computers in the library. She then started to go off about school budgets, but after she vented, she asked me what I was looking for, and she told me to try The Center for Missing Children’s website.”

“Why didn’t we think of that? Was that around back then?”

“I don’t know. Okay, here it is,” he said, pulling the site up. “Search for missing children. We don’t have the whole name, so I guess just the first, and we’ll assume Illinois. Crap, it won’t let me type in the year.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.