She may have never been found, laying there, cold, dead, if not for the four joggers, running hard, not paying attention to the dark winding paths of the forest, being sucked deeper and deeper in without the fear that they would soon stumble upon her cold flesh blooming in the dirt.
  It took the police station to arrive at the scene fifteen minutes. Trotting towards the elastic running shorts and fearful eyes, Todd Benedict and James Stallon, new to the force, grabbed their radios tucked into their shoulder pads and simultaneously requested the station to send every man on board. The two men stared blankly, frozen in their steps, they had never seen anything like it. Such a beautiful girl robbed of her exquisite soul so young.
   The joggers were pushed behind a line of yellow. The watery eyed women and the stiff chested men were hesitant to turn their back on a child they had watched grow up, whom took their orders, with a warm face at the town diner, that had performed with their own daughters dance recitals, now rolled in damp dirt, tucked under a white blanket, gently resting on a padded gurney.
   Dozens upon dozens of sirens pierced the morning sky. A large SUV skidded down the trail and stopped abruptly.  A man with untied shoes and wet hair, and a woman wrapped in her morning robe, eyes still glossed over and bare feet, unlocked the doors and began running frantically towards the commotion.
“Mr. and Mrs. Griphen! Please, right this way.”
An officer solemnly lifted the the caution tape over their heads and pointed them towards the corpse wrapped in white.
   As they approached the gurney, the man ran his fingers through his black wet hair and scratched the back of his head, his face was scrunched and a blotchy red rash had begun to appear; fear.
   Terror stung the eyes of the young nurse tending to the limp body. She looked with sympathy at the couple. The nurse placed her warm palm on the woman's shoulder as she pulled the white cover away from the face of the young girl. 
   A piercing scream came from the chest  of the Mrs. Griphen as she collapsed to her knees, face in the dirt and hands clutching the ground.
  "My baby!" the women shrieked.
  Mr. Griphen grew limp. Lips quivering, he cuffed his mouth with one shaking hand and placed the other gently on his daughters chest. Her lower neck and collar bones were pinched and bruised. Red and purple swarmed where a  dainty gold chain once hung.
“Her necklace. She was wearing a necklace, where is it?” Mr. Griphen choked, looking up at the nurse, tears blinding his eyes.
“What necklace sir? Nothing has been removed from the victim.”
Mr. and Mrs. Griphen looked at eachother. “The necklace Toby gave her. Margret you remember.” Mr. Griphen looked down at his wife.
“Toby?” the nurse replied.
“Her boyfriend, they’ve always been inseparable, she never took it off, even throughout their recent altercation” Mrs. Griphen said, slowly finding her footing. She glanced at the nurse with swollen eyes. 
Tucking his wife's shoulder tightly under his, an uneasy feeling erupted in the pit of Mr. Griphens stomach. Toby began to spiral through his brain as the couple followed the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
The woods were achingly silent; the coo of police sirens had faded into the distance and all that remained was a path in the woods, now swollen with footprints and damp with tears.
  Mrs. and Mr. Griphen returned to their home from the autopsy later that evening. The neighborhood which was once so lively; families taking evening walks, dogs barking at the creatures hiding under wooden porches, and laughing children, seemed to have disappeared. The streets were silent, blinds were shut tightly, and a haze of darkness weaved between the neighborhoods newly planted black ash trees. Mrs. Griphen looked up to the sky, taking a gulp of air she brushed a tear from her cheek and began to walk up the driveway. Palms locked, the couple stumbled aimlessly through their front door.
Mr. Griphen never had a complaint about the house him and his family lived in. Coming home from work to the warm yellow walls of the living room and the wooden picture frame arched over the stone fireplace that gently held the smiles of his daughter and wife, always seemed to comfort him. His safe place. Stress was left on the doormat and benevolent welcomes were always given wholeheartedly.
Sweaty socks now drowning in the living room carpet, he glanced around the room, the fireplace was now filled with pain, the only thing curing the rooms thick silence was the walls growling with solitude. There were no welcomes. The women he once seeked comfort in now seeked it herself. His body stiffened, engulfed in the tight grip of stress. How does one with a torn heart, mend someone elses?