The video opened with Hannah laughing into the camera.
For one impossible second, she was sixteen again.
Her hair was tied back, the blue bandana wrapped around her wrist.
Sunlight flashed between the trees behind her.
She held the phone too close to her face, just as she always did when she sent me videos.
“Look what you’re missing,” she said.
“No hospital, no broken bones, and Mom packed enough sandwiches for an army.”
The detective paused the recording.
Mom stared at the screen without blinking.
I had not heard Hannah’s voice in a year.
I gripped the arms of my chair because the sound of it made the hospital room tilt beneath me.
The detective asked whether Hannah regularly recorded messages for me.
I nodded.
We had sent each other videos whenever we were apart, even if it was only for a school day.
Most were pointless: complaints about homework, impressions of teachers, arguments about which one of us had stolen the other’s charger.
This one had begun the same way.
That made what followed worse.
The detective resumed the video.
Hannah turned the camera toward the trail.
Her steps were uneven.
Each time her left foot touched the ground, the image jerked.
“My ankle is officially ruined,” she said.
“Mom told me to stay put, but she’s been on that call forever.”
A digital timestamp showed that the recording had started nine minutes after the hiking groups departed.
Mom had told investigators she was gone for less than one minute.
Hannah continued slowly along the edge of the trail, filming the trees and narrating everything for me.
She complained about missing the lake hike.
She showed the remains of a wooden trail marker and joked that the park needed a better maintenance budget.
Then Mom’s voice came from behind her.
“Hannah!”
The camera swung around.
Mom was walking quickly down the narrow path.
She wore the green retreat jacket visible in the thumbnail.
Her phone was in her hand.
“I told you not to move,” she said.
“You said it would take a minute.”
“It did.”
“You’ve been gone almost ten.”
Mom saw the camera.
“Turn that off.”
“I’m sending something to my brother.”
“I said turn it off.”
The video jolted as Hannah stepped backward.
Loose stones shifted beneath her shoe.
There was a scraping sound, a sharp gasp and a blur of sky.
The phone struck the ground with the camera facing sideways.
Through weeds at the edge of the frame, I could see part of the trail and Mom’s boots.
Hannah had fallen out of sight.
“Hannah?” Mom shouted.
A weak voice answered from below.
“Mom.”
Every person in the room froze.
Mom closed her eyes.
The detective leaned closer to the speaker.
Hannah was somewhere beneath the trail, hidden by the steep bank and thick brush.
“I can’t move,” she said.
