The police opened a missing persons case. They interviewed friends, coworkers, and searched the woods. The lead investigator, a young deputy named Garrett, came by their house a few times, took notes, and asked questions. Then the visits stopped. After three months, the case went cold.
The official theory was that she’d just run off to the city without telling anyone. It happened sometimes back then—small-town girls chasing big-town dreams. But Alex knew Mary wouldn’t do that.
She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. She wouldn’t leave their mom. She wouldn’t leave him. His mother searched for years. She posted flyers, called news stations, and hired a private investigator they couldn’t afford.
Nothing. It was as if she’d evaporated. Slowly, his mother, Nancy, began to fade. First, she started drinking, then she lost her job. His father couldn’t take the grief and left in 2008.
He didn’t find another woman; he just moved to Pittsburgh for work and stopped calling. At 16, Alex was left alone with a mother who was losing her grip on reality. Nancy rarely left the house by then.
She talked to Mary’s photo, set a place for her at the table, and bought her birthday presents every year. Doctors called it complicated grief, but there was no money for specialists. In 2012, Nancy Morris passed away from a stroke.
She was only 53. Alex buried her in the local cemetery. Hardly anyone came to the funeral. Their relatives had long since drifted away.
His mother’s friends were gone. Only a neighbor, elderly Mrs. Gable, stood by Alex at the graveside. After the funeral, he boarded up the house and moved to the city. He worked construction, did some mechanic work, lived in cheap apartments.
He tried to forget Oak Creek, his mother, and his missing sister. He tried to start over. It didn’t work. Thoughts of Mary always came back.
He checked missing persons databases online. He joined forums for families of the disappeared. A few times, he called the Oak Creek Sheriff’s office, asking for updates. They always told him the same thing: the case was cold, but they’d call if anything changed.
Nothing ever changed. In 2022, seventeen years after Mary vanished, Alex moved back to Oak Creek. He was 31. He had never married. He’d had relationships, but they never lasted.
Women could feel his detachment, the unhealed wound he couldn’t explain. His parents’ house was a wreck. Alex sold it for whatever he could get and rented a small apartment on the edge of town. He got a job with Sam’s roofing crew.
The pay was decent. When Sam told him about the church job, Alex didn’t think twice. He needed the work. He wasn’t religious, but a job was a job, whether it was a church or a warehouse.
And now, he was sitting on the grass by that church, holding his sister’s earrings. Those exact earrings. He’d bought them at the mall in 2003 with money he’d saved from mowing lawns. They cost $50—a fortune for a 14-year-old kid.
The green glass was supposed to look like emeralds. Mary loved them. She wore them almost every day. And when she disappeared, the earrings went with her. “Alex! Alex! You okay?”
Father Mike’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. The priest was shaking his shoulder. Alex looked up, his face wet.
He hadn’t even realized he was crying. “These…”
