Disclaimer: See last chapter
~ Chapter One ~
Tawni's mother was the one to answer that dreaded phone call three days after her daughter had been reported missing. She told them everything she could about her daughter, she had cried into the phone when she knew what had happened, she knew that Tawni was never going to walk through that front door again. She was never going to hear her laugh, see her beautiful smile and her daughter was never going to be able to make the rest of the world laugh again. Tawni was gone and in her place was just an empty space that could never be filled.
"We found a finger..." The officer on the other end of the phone closed his eyes as he said it, wishing it hadn't been him on this high profile case, wishing he hadn't just told the mother that her only daughter had possibly been murdered, wishing this hadn't happened.
"But she might be alive?" The hope in her voice was clear, her fingers twisted around her shirt as she thought about her daughter being hurt or worse, the words rang through her head over and over again, repeating themselves, we found a finger, a finger, finger.
"It's a possibility." He told her, not wanting her to lose that hope that so many were clinging onto, that so many before her had lost, and so many had found. He could only hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be one of those times in which they could cling onto that hope as tightly as they possibly could, and never let go, not until it was certain. Not until they knew for definite.
- - - - - - - - - -
Two days later a bag had been found, another two days after that a hand and then another two days later the script for 'So Random!' was discovered, hidden underneath the snow. Tawni's pink highlighter ran down the wet pages, smudging the lines a little.
It would be the same script that Sonny Munroe held in her hands just a few weeks later, her fingers running over the pink, smiling at Tawni's name on the top as tears fell down her pale face, thinking about her best friend.
It would be the same script that Tawni's mother would hold in her hands just a few hours after it had been found, holding it close to her chest as she cried, loud sobs broke through the empty room she had found herself in. The last piece of her daughter in her hands, the last thing her daughter had read, the last memory she had of her daughter of the show that had never aired.
It would be the same script that a policeman would find and pick up, holding it up to the light to make out exactly what it was.
It would be the same script that would make them believe that Tawni Hart was in fact dead. It would be the blood on the very last page that would make them see that this could have been the last thing she held in her hands as she took her last breaths, it could have been the last thing the killer held in his hands as he watched her die.
One day after that, the murder investigation was launched. It would be a whole year later when the hunt stopped, a whole year later when they realized they never had enough evidence to find the person that had done that. And it would be over ten years later that the remains of her body would be found, nine years after everyone but two people had given up.