Dave’s ashes are still in the Sally’s cupboard

In the foreseeable future, if the kids are ready, she will simply take Dillon and you can Stacie to Mount Olympus to scatter its father’s stays.

Rick Woody, now 46, lies inside the candle lit, paneled home, watching new line off photos that line his mantel.

Past spring season, Rick offered to succeed federal and state regulators to generally share Kacie’s tale in the a nationwide work named www.besthookupwebsites.org/tr/altcom-inceleme/ “Innocent Pictures” to rehearse police and you will educate mothers – even when he’s not ready to listen to the storyline within the entirety

Discover their spouse, Kristie, the girl hitting has actually framed from the quite a few dark, tumbling curls. And there is Kacie, which had a comparable soulful sight and you can secretive, close-lipped smile.

“I’ve been through a myriad of emotions,” Rick states, his face unreadable. “I have undergone the newest bad stage, this new thinking-Goodness phase, where I have questioned, ‘How do you really need my spouse immediately after which change and you will just take my personal daughter?'”

The guy understands the fresh irony contained in this disaster – that the guy which became a cop to greatly help anyone else wasn’t right here whenever his or her own daughter called for your very.

Inside Summer, this new FBI presented Rick with certainly one of a hundred commemorative spots results Kacie’s title. The latest bluish-and-gold spot portrays a teddy-bear resting near to a computer. “Kacie Woody, 1989-2002” is actually printed on the pc display. FBI agents and you may local police who’re section of the fresh Innocent Photos task push often wear new patches.

Guilt and you may what-ifs haunt Rick. Can you imagine he previously called for the ill one nights, such he had been inclined to do? What if he’d remaining a better eyes towards Kacie’s pc issues?

“It can’t head your anywhere in a group,” he says. “You’d like to learn what you that’s going on in your children’s lives while consider you may have smart. ” Their voice tracks regarding. “We should manage her or him. ” Again, a stop just before Rick ends up: “She did not have people fears.”

White tombstones glitter up against the later-afternoon tincture on this subject gray, cloudy big date. Crickets chirp, and you may a breeze rustles woods towards cusp of autumnal glory.

Rick draws up on his bicycle, vehicle parking directly in side from Kacie’s grave. He takes off their helmet, treks towards grave and kneels. 11 months has enacted because what would were Kacie’s 14th birthday celebration. Tenderly, Rick scoops within the cards and you may cards one Sam, Jessica or other friends have left.

Years ago, Rick emerged right here for each Sept. 4, their wedding anniversary, to go out of red-colored flowers to own Kristie – one each year they will were hitched. This year, the guy leftover twenty-two.

However there is one minute grave looking for plant life, purple of these, Kacie’s favourite. Rick will come right here 3 x weekly, constantly with the his bike. It seems suitable to help you thunder on so it peaceful i’m all over this his bike.

Kacie treasured to help you drive having Rick

Kacie are delighted when Rick bought a motorbike. In their earliest travels, she leaned this way which, glorying contained in this new sense of independence. Rick in the end pulled over and you can lectured the girl regarding the holding on to him. The guy needed seriously to learn she had been right back there. But Kacie was not scared of falling-off. She is together with her father.

Rick leans facing his Kawasaki Vulcan and you can gazes on Kacie’s gravestone. He could be clad totally inside leather-based. Into his jacket, just over his center, ‘s the FBI patch you to definitely holds Kacie’s term.

Briefly, an explosion out-of sunshine pierces the newest clouds, warming the brand new arms, although not the brand new stone, about what a white ceramic angel slumbers. Getting much of the girl small lifestyle, Kacie wished to feel a keen angel, same as the woman mother. During the second amounts, to possess a college task, she noted a couple of desires: becoming a silver-medal gymnast, then, in the foreseeable future, to go to paradise to see the woman mommy.