Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, other than the Baxter family and this storyline. And if I did own Crossing Jordan, Jordan and Woody would've been together a loooooong time ago!
Chapter Two: The Unthinkable
Amanda looked up when she heard her name called, and said "What is it Aunt Donna?"
"Can you put the girls to bed? And after that, there's something I need to tell you."
"Sure," Amanda said. She turned to her sister Jessica and said, "Well Jessie, bed time! Aunt Donna wants you in bed, so you gotta go."
Jessie Brown looked at her older sister, who was picking the now- sleeping Lori up off of the floor, and said "OK, Manda. You putting me to bed?"
"Yep. So, march little dude."
Jessie ran down the hallway to the bedroom she shared with her baby sister Lori, closely followed by Amanda, carrying Lori.
Amanda entered the small kitchen and sat down at the table. "What's up Aunt Donna?" she asked. Amanda was worried. Her aunt looked sad, not "they broke my glass horse" sad, but "something's really wrong" sad.
Donna sighed. This was going to be tough. Finally, she said, "I got a call from your father today."
"My father?" asked Amanda. "What'd he want?"
"You know he's working here in Boston as a detective for the Boston Police, right?"
"Yeah...Aunt Donna, what's going on?"
"Well, the case he's been working on was the carjacking that involved you and your mother. He called tonight from the morgue." At the mention of the word morgue, Amanda shuddered. She also tensed up, remembering that her mom had not come home after the incident two days ago.
"He needs you to come down to the morgue tomorrow to identify a body."
Amanda began to choke up at the mention of the word 'body'. She braced herself before asking the question that she already knew the answer to: "Whose body?"
Donna reached across the table and took her niece's hand in hers before saying, "Amanda, your mother's dead. They need you to identify her body."
Amanda pulled away from her aunt and stood up rapidly, backing away from the table and knocking over a chair in the process. She couldn't believe what her aunt was saying.
"How does he know that it's Mom?" Amanda asked. "It could be anyone, Mom had those classic 'blonde hair, blue eyes' look, and a lot of people have that."
"He saw her class ring, and they let him look at the face. It's her, Amanda."
Amanda couldn't take another second of it. As soon as her aunt was done talking, she ran into her own room, closing the door hard. She heard her sisters wake up and start crying because of the loud noise as she slid down against the door and began to cry herself.