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When I’d crouched in front of her, I’d seen the fear on her face. A face I’d seen very recently…

And then the memories cracked into a thousand pieces. I hit the brake hard and sat there with my heart pounding in my chest.

Sofia. The name came at me with such an almost overwhelming intensity that I nearly dismissed it at once. It was impossible. It just had to be. Fifteen years was such a ridiculously long time. Memories got distorted and features blurred. Children grew into adults and, quite honestly, there was nothing to suggest that a cowering eight-year-old inside a burning building was the same as the confident woman who’d been sitting beside me a few minutes earlier.

But then again, I’d known there was something familiar about Sofia Hayes from the instant she’d walked into my life.

I’d registered her eyes and hadn’t truly understood why I recognized them. Driving home very slowly through the eerily dark, quiet suburban streets, I realized there was a very solid reason for all those familiar feelings.

When I pulled up to my house and got out, I called Trevor at once. He picked up instantly.

“I need you to do a background check on someone.”

There was a brief pause, then, “Who? What am I looking for?”

“Sofia Hayes. Everything you can dig up. Parents, childhood, where she grew up…arrest records, any juvenile record, foster care, anything connected to her family and that fire fifteen years ago.”

Trevor’s silence confirmed the weight of the request. He didn’t question me right away.

“Understood.”

I lowered the phone, the screen dark in my hand. I was feeling quite weird. I wasn’t sure which possibility scared me more: that she was completely unrelated to that little girl and I’d been hallucinating, or that she was exactly who I thought she was.

CHAPTER NINE

Sofia

The episode consumed me for days. It sat on my laptop, open, as I bounced between research notes and archived clippings and financial statements and a timeline I’d created from the fire to present day. Every time I thought I’d gotten enough information, there was another void staring at me that I couldn’t ignore.

The money was missing, and the alleged betrayal had taken place. There were businesses linked to the O’Connor organization. And then there was the fire fifteen years ago. While each individual thing meant absolutely nothing on its own, they linked in an undeniable pattern.

Every word was cautious. I couldn’t claim the O’Connors were murderers when I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t say the fire started due to the theft because I couldn’t connect the dots yet. But what I could do was lay out the facts, list a few key events within a specific timeframe, and wonder if anyone else knew something.

Thus, the episode was framed as a mystery about an unsolved organized crime issue. I talked about the money and the activity within Boston businesses around the time of the fire, millions disappearing along alleged money laundering trails before a mystery insider allegedly absconded with the fortune.

I mentioned the unexplained and tenuous connections between people involved in the financial side of things.

Then I got to the fire itself. Fifteen years prior, a family perished in what was recorded as a tragic and devastating event. While few questions were asked about it in the aftermath, still fewer were ever answered.

I didn’t mention that I was there or that the fire killed my parents.

I said that if anyone had any newspaper clippings, photographs, police records, financial documents, private memories, or public, unrecorded information, they were encouraged to step forward. Contact could be anonymous and documents could be submitted without identifying personal details.

I was under no illusions regarding the potential outcome of this episode. I was opening a door. The information that might come was not necessarily the information that I was wishing for.

When I finished recording the episode, I sat in front of my microphone for a long time without moving. The waveform proved that I’d spent hours talking about the past I’d spent years running from.

My finger rested on the publish button. For years now, I’d wanted answers. Now that I was finally doing something to hopefully find them, I felt nothing but terror. My parents’ faces flashed through my mind.

The fire burned in my thoughts and the O’Connor name rang in my ears. And for some unexplainable reason, Ronnie crossed my mind, too. I clicked publish, and there was only a brief instant of nothing occurring.

And then there it was: Buried Saints had a new episode. I relaxed back in my seat and exhaled a breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding. I was afraid, yet below the terror, I felt something unfamiliar…peace.

Regardless of what happened next, I could no longer flee the questions in my head. It would be a matter of patiently observing who, if anyone, decided to answer them.

***

The reaction to the episode wasn’t immediate, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for how fast it escalated. By the next morning, Buried Saints had spread to more than just my normal listeners.