Amber

Chapter 47

Mark

December 8, 2015

Hailey Austin returned home earlier this morning.

The young couple who found her two weeks ago said she was completely unrecognizable, cut up, bleeding, filthy, sobbing, and running out of the woods on her bare feet. They described her as a walking nightmare running from itself. They told the police they were driving into town just after sunup when they thought they saw a deer moving among the trees. Once they saw it was a girl, they immediately pulled over to call the police and looked after her until the squad cars arrived.

She was confused, disoriented, and half out of her mind, but the hospital released Hailey today after sixteen days of treatment and recovery. It stated publicly that what she needs most now is to be home with her family and that her condition has improved enough to warrant regular therapy and in-home nurse and psychiatric care.

Details are still being released daily, but I've stayed glued to the TV and Internet every moment since she was found, hoping that Lauren's next.

Things are not looking good though.

During her in and out state and being questioned, Hailey described the events of her kidnapping, the place she was being held, and the appearance of the man responsible. According to her initial statement, she and another girl were held captive, cut with a knife, and tortured by a silent man with a rose tattoo. That other girl was supposed to be Lauren. They were both supposed to escape together. They were both supposed to return home.

Lauren is supposed to be here with me now.

But at the end of Hailey's first week of treatment, she amended her initial statement with encouragement from her doctors and therapists. She changed her description about what happened.

She changed everything.

Although the police have assured the public that nothing has been completely ruled out, Hailey claimed she was not abducted, she ran off on her own, she was alone, and everything she thought had happened was only a product of her imagination and a sickness of her mind.

This version of events is consistent with patterns found in the journals Hailey wrote before her disappearance, in which she displayed signs of severe depression, mood swings, and episodes of psychosis possibly linked to schizoaffective disorder for many months.

Detectives searched the entire area of the woods where Hailey was found and discovered an abandoned two-story house with a hidden wine cellar where Hailey is believed to have stayed for nearly three weeks, surviving on a reservoir of rainwater and scraps of stale food stored in the cellar.

There was blood found in the cellar and on the first floor of the house, but it all has been confirmed as Hailey's blood. There was only one set of tracks in the woods leading to and away from the house: Hailey's. There were no tire marks either or any other signs of life in the area. A pair of shoes was found buried under a pile of leaves, tied together and knotted at the laces. The left was a size nine and confirmed to have belonged to Hailey, and the right a size six having belonged to her now deceased sister.

After all of this was released, the police came by to tell Nana and I that the search for Lauren is ongoing and that they would do everything in their power to find her, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against the possibility of her having ever been in the same abandoned house as Hailey.

The first missing girl is still missing.

The police have also finally expressed their belief in the likelihood that Mrs. Garter's witnessing of Hailey's abduction was actually the account of Lauren's abduction two months earlier. That her memory failed her into believing the abduction took place in November instead of September. That when she called the police, she was reporting something she saw two months ago that she believed had just happened. That from a distance, she would not have been able to distinguish between Lauren and Hailey.