November 2013, road workers arrived to check the drainage pipes under the mountain road in Sierra, Nevada.

It was routine work before the winter season.

They needed to make sure that water was flowing freely and that there were no blockages.

One of the workers approached a pipe with a diameter of about 1 m and shown a flashlight inside.

Something was blocking the passage.

He crouched down closer, a concrete plug.

Someone had sealed the entrance with cement.

This was strange because pipes are never blocked on purpose.

The workers called the site manager.

He arrived half an hour later and took a look.

They decided to break it open.

When they broke the concrete, they found human remains inside.

But it all started quite differently a year before this discovery.

September 21st, 2012.

Friday, Linda Forbes finished work earlier than usual.

She was a photographer shooting weddings and family portraits in a small studio in Fresno.

That day, she had a morning shoot that ended at lunchtime.

The rest of the day was free, so Linda decided to go to the mountains.

She often did that.

She would take her backpack and tent and leave for a day or two.

The mountains were her place to relax, away from people, orders, and constant smiles in front of the camera.

At in the afternoon, she called her friend Emily.

She said she was going to Shaver Lake on the range trail.

She planned to walk to the observation deck, spend the night there, and return the next evening.

Emily asked if she wanted company.

Linda replied that she didn’t, that she needed to be alone, just to walk around and take pictures.

Emily was used to these trips of hers.

Linda always came back, always got in touch.

There was no reason to worry.

Linda packed her things.

A tent, a sleeping bag, a stove, food for 2 days, a camera with two lenses, spare batteries, a flashlight, a first aid kit, water, everything as usual.

She got into her gray Honda Accord and left the city around 3.

It was about an hour’s drive to the start of the route.

She arrived at the parking lot near the trail at around in the afternoon.

There were already three cars there.

Tourists usually arrived at this time so they could make it up the trail before dark.

Linda got out of the car, took out her backpack, and put on her hiking boots.

The temperature was comfortable, around 15°.

The weather promised to be good with no precipitation.

It would cool down to 5° at night, but that was normal for September.

At the trail head, there was an information stand with a map of the route and registration cards.

Linda took a pencil and filled out the card.

She wrote her name, phone number, planned route, and return date.

September 22nd evening.

She attached the card to the board.

It was standard procedure.

If someone did not return on time, the rangers would look at these cards and begin a search.

A park ranger was driving by in a service truck at that moment.

He stopped and got out.

He asked Linda if everything was okay and if she knew the route.

Linda smiled and said yes, that she came here regularly.

The ranger noticed that she was alone.

This was not quite normal for this route at this time of year.

Usually tourists walked in pairs or groups, but Linda looked confident and had all the necessary equipment.

The ranger nodded, wished her a good hike, got back in his truck, and drove away.

He was the last person to see her.

Linda set off along the trail.

The first few kilometers were easy through the forest with almost no elevation gain.

The trail was well marked with signs every few hundred meters.

The sun shone through the treetops, and the air was fresh and cool.

Linda walked at her own pace, stopping occasionally to take a few photos.

Branches, light, rocks.

She was in no hurry.

After 5 km, the trail began to climb more steeply.

The trees became sparser, revealing views of the valley.

From here, she could see the road below, which ran parallel to the route for a kilometer and then veered off to the side.

Cars passed by on the road, but rarely.

It was a typical mountain road, narrow and winding.

Local residents used it as a detour, and tourists hardly ever drove on it.

Linda’s phone was last detected on the network at p.m.

The signal was weak.

The tower was 7 km from the start of the trail.

After that, the connection was lost.

No calls, no messages.

The phone simply disappeared from the network.

This is normal in the mountains where coverage is unstable.

But it was precisely this time, p.m., that became an important point later when they began to reconstruct her route.

The next day, September 22nd, Linda was supposed to be back by evening.

Emily waited for a message.

Linda usually texted when she was coming down from the trail.

A short message.

Everything’s fine.

Heading home.

This time, there was no message.

Emily waited until 10 p.m.

Then tried to call.

There was no answer, just voicemail.

The phone was either turned off or out of range.

Emily thought Linda was just delayed.

Maybe she decided to stay another night.

The weather was nice.

Linda sometimes did that.

Emily went to bed, deciding that there would definitely be news in the morning.

On the morning of September 23rd, Linda still hadn’t returned.

The phone was silent.

Emily began to worry.

She called the park service around in the morning.

She explained the situation to the person on duty.

He said he would check the parking lot.

Half an hour later, he called back.

Linda’s car was still there.

It had been there for more than 3 days.

Leaves were already covering the rear window.

The attendant contacted the rangers.

Two of them climbed the trail to the observation deck.

They walked the entire route.

There was no tent, no signs of a campsite.

They climbed back down and checked the side trails.

Nothing.

By evening, a search party had joined the effort.

12 people combed the area until dark.

Volunteers, rangers, rescuers.

The next morning, they continued with a dog.

The dog, trained to search for people, picked up the trail from the parking lot and followed the trail.

But after 2 km, it stopped.

It just stopped and wouldn’t go any further.

The guide tried again.

The result was the same.

The trail ended where the path ran alongside the road.

This was the first oddity.

Dogs usually follow the trail to the end to the place where the person stopped or changed direction.

Here, the trail simply disappeared.

It was as if Linda had vanished in the middle of the path.

Rescuers searched the road, the shoulders, and the ditches.

Nothing.

The asphalt was clean.

No personal belongings, no traces.

Under the road was a drainage pipe through which a stream flowed.

It was a large concrete pipe about a meter in diameter.

One of the rescuers shown a flashlight inside from one side.

The pipe seemed empty.

Darkness and water at the bottom.

They checked the other side too.

Nothing suspicious.

No one thought to climb inside.

The pipe was too narrow and wet.

Why climb in there? There was clearly no one there.

The search continued for 5 days.

Groups covered dozens of kilometers.

They checked ravines, rocky areas, and thicket.

They used a drone to take aerial photographs.

There were no results.

Linda seemed to have vanished.

Her backpack, tent, camera, and phone had all disappeared with her.

After 2 weeks, the official search was called off.

The rangers told Emily and Linda’s parents that they had done everything they could.

They had checked every logical area.

If a person had strayed far from the trail or fallen into an inaccessible place, it would be almost impossible to find them.

Linda’s parents came from Oregon.

Her father went up the trail several times and asked people questions.

No one had seen anything.

Her mother waited at the hotel, unable to climb the trail due to her health.

They stayed for 2 weeks, then returned home.

Every day, they called the detective in charge of the case.

Every time they heard the same thing, no news.

Linda’s car was taken away after 3 weeks.

The police examined the interior.

There were no signs of a struggle.

A bag with spare clothes was lying on the back seat.

In the glove compartment were documents, music CDs, and a charger.

Everything was neat, as if Linda had just gone out for a few hours.

The detective checked her recent financial transactions.

Two days before her disappearance, Linda withdrew $120 from an ATM.

After that, she did not use her card.

Her last call was to a friend on the day she set out on her route.

The detective requested cell tower data.

The phone was last detected in the area of the very section of the road where the dog lost the trail.

The radius was about a kilometer.

The detective went there and examined the area again.

the road, the path, the ditch, the drainage pipe.

He recorded the coordinates and returned to the office.

A month later, the case was classified as cold.

This meant that there would be no further active investigation, but the case remained open.

If new information came to light, the investigation would be reopened.

Autumn ended, winter came, the first snow fell at the end of October.

By December, there was more than a meter of snow on the roads.

The trails were closed until spring.

Snow plows worked every night, clearing the mountain roads.

Massive trucks with plows and brushes slowly crawled along the winding roads in the dark.

The drivers knew every turn.

They worked from p.m.

to a.m.

when traffic was minimal.

Snow fell all winter, one layer after another.

The road was cleared, but the trails were buried.

The drainage pipe that the rescuers had checked was also hidden under the snow.

The entire area where Linda’s trail disappeared was covered with a meter thick layer of snow.

Winter in the mountains is long.

The snow doesn’t melt until April.

In the spring, when the roads were cleared, the trails were reopened.

Tourists returned.

Some of them passed by the area where Linda’s phone was last detected.

They walked by, took pictures, pitched tents.

No one noticed anything.

Under the road, in a concrete pipe behind a walled up entrance, lay what they had been looking for a year ago.

Summer passed, then autumn, then winter again.

The search for Linda Forbes had almost stopped.

The case was in the archives.

Her parents called less and less often.

Emily tried not to think about her friend, but sometimes she looked at her photos on her phone.

Linda smiled from the screen holding the camera.

The photo was taken in the mountains on one of the trails.

Behind Linda were the very slopes where she had disappeared.

November 2013, road workers were conducting a routine inspection of the drainage systems.

They were checking pipes, cleaning blockages, preparing for the winter season.

When they approached that pipe, one of them immediately noticed that something was wrong.

The entrance was blocked, not with trash or branches, but with concrete.

It had been deliberately walled up.

This was strange because drainage pipes are never blocked.

Their job is to let water through.

A blocked pipe means problems in the spring when the snow begins to melt.

The workers called their boss.

He arrived, took a look, and decided to open it up.

They took a jackhammer and began to break the concrete.

The work took an hour.

When they had made a hole large enough, one of the workers shown a flashlight inside.

Then he quickly recoiled.

They called the police.

Inside the pipe were human remains.

The police arrived 30 minutes later.

Two patrol cars and a forensic vehicle.

The senior officer approached the pipe and looked inside.

He called in specialists and a medical examiner.

The area was cordoned off with yellow tape.

The workers were told to step back and wait.

No one was allowed to approach the pipe until the experts arrived.

An hour later, the same investigator who had handled the Linda Forbes disappearance case a year ago arrived.

His name was Robert Kaine, 48 years old, and he had been with the department for 23 years.

When he received the call about the discovery, he immediately thought of her.

The location matched.

This was where the dog had lost the trail.

This was where her phone had last been detected.

Cain put on a protective suit and gloves, took a flashlight, and approached the pipe.

Inside, about 3 m from the entrance, lay the remains.

The skeleton was almost complete.

Next to it lay a backpack, partially decomposed from moisture.

pieces of fabric, metal parts of the frame.

Further away were the remains of a tent and a sleeping bag, a camera in a case, a plastic water bottle.

Everything was covered with a layer of dirt and mold, but it was fairly well preserved.

The pipe protected the items from animals and weather conditions.

Cain did not go inside.

That was a job for the forensic experts.

He only examined the entrance.

The concrete plug was neat and professional.

Someone had mixed cement, poured it into the entrance, and smoothed the surface.

The work had taken time.

It was not a spontaneous act.

Someone knew what they were doing.

The medical examiner arrived next.

She was a woman in her 50s who had been working in the county for 20 years.

She examined the site, took several photographs, then called for assistance.

The remains and belongings had to be removed without damaging them.

The work took four hours.

The forensic experts set up lighting and stretched a tarp over the entrance to the pipe.

Each item was photographed and packed separately.

The remains were carefully removed on a stretcher and placed in a special bag.

By evening, everything had been taken away.

Cain stayed behind and examined the road around him.

The asphalt was old and cracked.

The roadside was overgrown with grass and bushes.

There were no traces of cars or people.

A year had passed since something had happened here.

Snow, rain, and wind had erased everything.

The only clues were the pipe itself and what was inside it.

The next day, the medical examiner began working on the remains.

The skeleton belonged to a woman between the ages of 30 and 35.

She was about 165 cm tall.

Several teeth had fillings.

Linda Forbes’s dental records were requested from her dentist in Fresno.

The records arrived 2 days later.

A comparison showed a perfect match.

It was Linda.

The expert carefully examined the bones.

There was a fracture on the skull.

The crack ran from the right temporal region to the back of the head.

The blow was strong, delivered with a blunt object.

Judging by the nature of the fracture, death was quick.

There were no other injuries on the skeleton, no signs of stab wounds, gunshot wounds, or defensive injuries on the hands, just one blow to the head.

The report stated, “Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the skull.

The nature of the injury indicates a strong blow, possibly as a result of a fall or collision.

The exact origin of the injury is difficult to determine without additional information.

Time of death approximately 13 months ago, which coincides with the date of disappearance.

Cain received the report and began to piece together the picture.

Linda was walking along the trail on the evening of September 21st.

Her phone was last detected at p.m.

It was a section where the trail ran along the road.

The distance between the trail and the road was about 15 m, a slope with a slight incline.

He went there during the day and walked along the trail.

At p.m., it was already getting dark.

Linda could have been walking with a flashlight or a headlamp.

What could have happened? There were several versions.

First, she left the trail, went down to the road, and was hit by a car.

The driver was frightened and hid the body.

Second, she was attacked, beaten, and hidden.

Third, an accident.

She fell.

Someone found her and for some reason decided to hide the body instead of calling for help.

Forensic experts examined the items found in the pipe.

The backpack was badly damaged by moisture, but some items inside were preserved.

a burner, a metal mug, a knife, food packaging.

Linda’s passport in a plastic sleeve, slightly soggy but legible.

The camera was in a protective case.

It was sent to the lab.

The memory card was intact.

Experts extracted the data.

The card contained photos taken on the day of her disappearance.

The last pictures showed a trail, trees, a view of the valley.

The time of shooting was p.m.

The photos were taken in an area where the trail ran parallel to the road.

In one photo, the road was visible in the distance.

Cain enlarged the image.

There was nothing on the road.

No cars, no people.

The last photo was a blurry shot of the ground as if the camera had fallen or Linda had stumbled at the moment of shooting.

The request was sent to the county road service.

They needed data on the cars that had passed along this road on the evening of September 21st, 2012.

The answer came a week later.

There were no cameras on this section of road.

It was a normal mountain road with no observation posts.

The only information available was the work schedule for snow removal equipment and road service vehicles.

But in September, the snow removal equipment was not in operation.

There was no snow yet.

The next step was to obtain a list of all road service employees who could have been in that area on that day.

There were seven people on the list.

Three were working on road repairs 20 km from that location.

Two were on vacation.

One was on sick leave.

The last was Kevin Marsh, a road equipment driver.

There were no entries in his work schedule for September 21st.

It was his day off.

They decided to question all seven.

The three who had been working on the repairs confirmed their alibis.

They had entries in the work log and the foreman’s signature.

The two who were on vacation provided their plane tickets and hotel reservations.

The one on sick leave showed his medical records.

That left Kevin Marsh.

Cain arrived at his home 2 days after the body was identified.

It was a small one-story house on the outskirts of town with an old pickup truck in the yard.

Kevin opened the door and looked wary.

The investigator introduced himself and said he was investigating the disappearance of Linda Forbes and that her remains had been found.

He asked if he could ask a few questions.

Kevin nodded and invited him inside.

They sat down at the kitchen table.

The first question was whether Kevin remembered anything about September 21st of last year.

Kevin thought for a moment and said no that it had been a long time.

According to his records, it was his day off.

Kevin nodded.

He said that he usually did chores around the house on weekends and sometimes went fishing.

He asked what was going on.

The explanation was simple.

The remains had been found near a section of road that Kevin maintained in the winter.

Had he driven there that day? Kevin paused.

Then he said he didn’t remember.

Maybe he had.

He sometimes drives on mountain roads just for fun.

The answer was recorded.

What kind of car does he drive? Kevin pointed to the window.

A Ford F-150 pickup truck, blue, an old model from the ’90s.

The conversation ended quickly.

Cain thanked him for the information and said that if he remembered anything else, he should call.

He gave him his business card.

Kevin took the card and walked the guests to the door.

When the car drove away, he stood on the porch for a long time looking at the road.

The office wrote a request to check Kevin’s car.

They needed to find out if the car had been repaired after September 21st, 2012, and if there had been any damage.

The answer came 3 days later.

There were no records of repairs.

The car had been registered to Kevin for 8 years, and during that time, the oil had been changed twice, and the brake pads had been replaced once.

No complaints, no claims.

Attention shifted back to the physical evidence.

Forensic scientists were still working on the concrete plug.

When it was broken up, several pieces were sent to the lab.

They checked the composition of the concrete, looking for fingerprints and traces of biological material.

Two weeks later, the report came back.

Traces of epithelial cells were found on one of the pieces of concrete.

These were microscopic particles of skin that had gotten onto the surface while working with the cement.

Someone had mixed the solution, poured it into the pipe entrance, and smoothed the surface with their hands or a tool.

The particles were preserved because the concrete hardened quickly and protected them from external influences.

DNA was extracted from these particles.

The process took time.

The samples were small and partially degraded, but the experts were able to obtain a partial profile.

It was sent to the database.

No matches were found.

The person who left these traces had no previous convictions and had not been involved in other cases.

Cain remembered Kevin Marsh.

There was no reason to demand a DNA sample from him.

He was not officially a suspect.

He was just one of the people who could have been near the crime scene.

It was necessary to proceed with caution.

A week later, Kevin got a call.

They said they had a few more questions and needed to clarify some details.

They suggested meeting at a cafe, a neutral place.

Kevin agreed.

The meeting was set for the next day.

They sat at a table and Cain ordered coffee for both of them.

When the waitress brought the cups, the conversation began.

General questions about Kevin’s work, his schedule, the roads.

Kevin answered calmly, drinking his coffee.

The answers were written down in a notebook.

20 minutes later, the conversation ended.

Cain thanked him for his time and said goodbye.

When Kevin left, the investigator remained at the table.

He waited until the waitress began to clear the table.

Then he approached her and showed her his badge.

He asked her not to wash the cup Kevin had drunk from, but to put it in a separate bag.

He explained that it was part of the investigation.

The waitress nodded and packed the cup.

It was taken away and sent to the lab.

Forensic experts took fingerprints from the cup.

They sent them to be compared with the fingerprint on the bottle cap found in the pipe.

The results came back 3 days later.

They matched.

The partial fingerprint on the cap belonged to Kevin Marsh.

Cain called the prosecutor.

Now there was enough evidence for a warrant.

The warrant to search Kevin Marsh’s home was issued 2 days later.

The judge reviewed the case materials and looked at the evidence.

The fingerprint on the bottle from the pipe matched Kevin’s fingerprints.

The DNA on the concrete plug was waiting to be compared.

That was enough for a search and arrest.

Early in the morning on December 6th, 2013, three cars pulled up to Kevin’s house.

Cain, two assistants, four uniformed officers, two detectives.

Kevin was at home getting ready for work.

He opened the door when he heard a knock.

He saw people with a warrant.

His face didn’t change, but his hands trembled.

They asked him to step out onto the porch and read him his rights.

He listened silently and nodded.

While Kevin was kept outside, the forensic experts entered the house.

The search took three hours.

They checked every room, every closet, every drawer.

In the garage, they found bags of cement.

Portland cement, the same brand used by the road service.

Three bags, one of them opened.

Tools were standing nearby.

A shovel, a tel, a bucket with traces of dried mortar.

Work gloves were lying on a shelf in the bedroom.

Several pairs, old and dirty.

The forensic team packed everything into bags.

They found stains on the garage floor, dark, old.

It could have been blood.

It could have been oil.

They took samples.

On the workbench lay a log book of work shifts.

Kevin kept personal records marking the days when he worked and when he was at home.

There was no entry for September 21st, 2012.

Kevin was taken to the police station.

They put him in an interrogation room.

Gray walls, a table, three chairs, a camera in the corner.

Cain came in half an hour later and sat down opposite him.

He put a folder with documents on the table.

He turned on the recording.

They started with simple questions.

Name, age, place of work.

Kevin answered calmly, his voice steady.

Then they asked about September 21st, 2012.

Did he remember that day? Kevin said, “No.” More than a year had passed.

How could he remember one specific day? Cain opened the folder.

He took out a photo of Linda Forbes.

He put it on the table.

He asked if Kevin knew this woman.

Kevin looked at the photo and shook his head.

He had never seen her before.

Cain said that this was Linda Forbes, whose remains had been found in a drainage pipe on the section of road that Kevin maintained.

Kevin was silent.

Next was a photo of a bottle, the same one found in the pipe next to the body.

Cain said Kevin’s fingerprint was found on the cap of that bottle.

How could that be explained? Kevin looked at the photo.

Then he said he didn’t know.

Maybe it was a mistake.

Maybe his fingerprints are on many things.

He works on the road and touches various objects.

Cain took out another photo, a concrete plug from the pipe.

He said that traces of DNA had been found on it.

He asked if Kevin agreed to provide a sample for comparison.

Kevin paused.

Then he asked if he needed a lawyer.

Cain said it was his right.

The interrogation was interrupted.

The lawyer arrived 2 hours later, a man in his 60s, a local who worked on small cases.

He spoke with Kevin alone for 20 minutes.

Then they returned to the interrogation room.

The lawyer said his client agreed to provide a DNA sample, but would not answer any more questions without additional evidence.

The sample was taken immediately.

A cotton swab was used to take a sample from the inside of his cheek.

It was packaged and sent to the lab.

The analysis takes 3 to 5 days.

Kevin was released on his own recgnizance.

He had to pick up his passport, not leave the city, and report when summoned.

He left the station in the evening.

He got into his pickup truck which had been brought from the search site.

He drove home.

The house was in disarray after the search.

Things had been pulled out of the closets and the furniture had been moved.

Kevin went into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

He sat there until dark.

The lab worked around the clock.

They compared the DNA from the concrete plug with Kevin’s sample.

The process required precision.

They checked several times to rule out any errors.

The results came back 4 days later on December 10th.

A match.

The DNA on the concrete belonged to Kevin Marsh.

Cain received the report in the morning.

He called the prosecutor.

Now they had every reason to arrest him.

the fingerprint on the bottle, the DNA on the concrete plug, the bags of cement in the garage, the tools with traces of mortar.

The prosecutor agreed.

They signed the arrest warrant.

Kevin was picked up from work the next day.

He was sitting in the cab of a snowplow getting ready for the night shift.

He saw the police cars and came out himself.

He didn’t resist.

They took him back to the station, but this time they didn’t let him go.

The official charges were seconddegree murder and concealment of a body.

The second interrogation took place the next morning.

Kevin sat in the same room, his lawyer beside him.

Cain laid all the evidence on the table, photographs, expert reports, test results.

He explained that they had direct evidence linking Kevin to the crime scene and Linda Forbes’s body.

He asked if he was ready to testify.

Kevin looked at the documents.

He was silent for several minutes.

His lawyer whispered something in his ear.

Then Kevin raised his head.

He said he wanted to tell what had happened.

His lawyer tried to stop him, but Kevin shook his head.

Enough.

He began to speak slowly, quietly.

September 21st, 2012 was his day off.

But in the evening, he decided to drive along the mountain roads.

He did this sometimes when he couldn’t sleep.

He just drove looking at the road.

That evening, he was in his pickup truck driving slowly.

Around in the evening, he was passing the section where the trail runs parallel to the road.

It was dark.

The headlights were shining ahead, but not very brightly.

An old pickup truck, old lamps.

He was driving, looking at the road, and suddenly he saw a person.

A woman was standing right on the asphalt with her back to him.

He didn’t understand where she had come from.

He hit the brakes, but it was too late.

The pickup truck hit her, not hard.

He was going slowly, about 30 kmh.

But she fell.

Kevin stopped.

He got out of the car.

He approached her.

The woman was lying on the asphalt, not moving.

He bent down and tried to check her pulse.

Nothing.

Her head was turned at a strange angle.

Blood was flowing from her ear.

He realized she was dead.

Panic.

His first thought was to call the police.

But then he thought about the consequences.

He had hit a person.

Even if it was an accident, even if she was standing in the dark on the road, he would be blamed.

He would lose his job, maybe even go to jail.

He didn’t have money for a lawyer.

There was no one to help him.

He stood next to the body for several minutes.

Cars rarely drive on this road, especially at night.

But someone could appear at any moment.

He had to do something.

He looked around.

He saw a drainage pipe under the road.

He knew this pipe.

He had driven past it hundreds of times.

It was large, concrete, empty.

Kevin took the woman by the arms and dragged her to the side of the road.

The body was heavy.

He lowered it down the slope to the pipe.

He climbed inside and pulled the body in after him.

He dragged it 3 m from the entrance.

Then he returned to the road.

The woman’s backpack was lying on the side of the road.

He picked it up, went back down, and placed it next to the body.

He returned to the pickup truck.

There was a dent in the front bumper, small but noticeable.

The paint was scraped off.

He wiped the bumper with his sleeve, removing the traces of blood.

He got in the car and drove home.

He didn’t sleep all night.

He thought about what he had done.

The next day, the search began.

Kevin saw the rescue vehicles and heard about the missing tourist.

He knew it was that woman, but he kept quiet.

The search continued for a week.

They checked the trails, the woods, the ravines.

They checked that pipe, but didn’t find the body.

It was too deep inside in the darkness.

When the search ended, Kevin thought it was over, but the body was in the pipe.

In the spring, when the snow began to melt, the water could wash away the remains.

Someone would find it.

Questions would arise.

He decided to wall up the entrance.

He bought bags of cement at the hardware store.

He took tools from the garage.

He drove to the pipe late at night when the road was empty.

He mixed the mortar right at the entrance to the pipe.

He poured it into the entrance and leveled the surface.

He worked quickly using his hands and a tel.

The mortar hardened overnight.

By morning, the entrance was completely closed.

Winter passed.

Spring.

Summer.

Kevin worked as usual.

He drove past that pipe every day in winter when he was clearing snow.

He knew what was inside.

He tried not to think about it, but he thought about it constantly.

When the workers found the body a year later, Kevin knew the end was near.

He waited for them to come for him and they came.

The recording of the interrogation was stopped.

Kevin sat with his head down.

The lawyer covered his face with his hands.

Cain gathered the documents and stood up.

He said that Kevin’s testimony would be used in court.

He was left in a holding cell until the trial.

Linda’s parents were called that same day.

They were told that the person responsible for their daughter’s death had been found.

that he had confessed.

Her mother cried into the phone.

Her father was silent.

After a few minutes, he asked when the trial would be.

He was told it would be in a few months.

The process would take time.

Emily also heard the news.

She was at work when Cain called her.

He explained the situation.

He said that Linda had died in an accident, but the man who had done it had hidden her body instead of calling for help.

Emily listened silently.

Then she hung up.

She took out her phone and opened a photo of Linda, the one from the mountains.

Linda was smiling, holding a camera.

The story of Linda Forbes’s disappearance was over.

The murder case against Kevin Marsh had begun.

The prosecution was preparing its case.

The defense sought ways to mitigate the sentence.

The court had to decide whether it was intentional aggression or an accident followed by concealment.

This would determine how many years Kevin would spend in prison.

But for Linda’s family and friends, it no longer mattered.

She had been dead for over a year.

She was found in a concrete pipe, walled up, hidden, forgotten.

The man who could have saved her, or at least called for help, immediately chose silence and deception.

He chose to save his own life at the cost of her death and the suffering of her loved ones.

The story got answers, but the answers did not bring Linda