A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

Babies,” I tell her. I’d just gotten my license. I was driving at night. I
never saw them, yet the guilt ate at me for months. I felt awful about
it.
“It wasn’t a fucking raccoon, Meredith!” Bea screams.
In all the time that I’ve known her, I’ve never known Bea to lose
her temper. I’ve never seen this side of Bea. She’s tough, she’s ironwilled.
But this is a Bea that I don’t know. This is a Bea that’s
reactive.
Silence fills the car. She stares at me, wild-eyed, her hair falling in
her eyes.
I can’t hear my own panicked breathing, but I can feel the way my
chest rises and falls.
“Bea,” I say. It comes out as a breath. “What is it? What did you
hit?”
Her silence terrifies me. She lets go of my arm. She relaxes back
into her seat, staring ahead.
I get out of the car. I stagger to the front end of it. I have to see
what it is.
I prepare myself for the worst. Roadkill is never pretty.
Decapitation comes to mind, as does limb loss. Something horrific
has happened here. Something that’s shaken Bea to the core.
And then I see, in the faint glow of the nighttime sky.
It’s not an animal.
The horror washes over me. My heart palpitates. My legs are like
rubber. My palms sweat. I stand frozen at first, gaping, my sweaty
hands pressed to my mouth to hold a scream back.
It’s a person—female, based on the hair length and body shape.
She’s lying facedown on the street, a barely perceptible pool of
blackness spreading beneath her. Her arms are up like goalposts.
It’s the same way Delilah used to sleep as a baby, on her chest with
arms up and over her head. This woman’s long hair surrounds her.
Her legs are tucked beneath the car.
Bea steps from the car. She comes to stand beside me. “She
should have been wearing reflective gear. A fucking headlamp. She
should have been on the sidewalk.”
My legs finally give. I drop to my knees, not by choice but out of
necessity. The gravel from the street digs into my skin. I reach out for