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The following morning, the search ended in the most brutal way imaginable. It wasn’t the sight of her colorful shirt that gave her away, nor was it the sound of a child’s voice. It was a scent—a heavy, cloying stench that drifted from a neglected, overgrown lot just a few hundred yards from the metro entrance. A neighbor, out walking their dog, followed the smell into the high weeds. There, discarded like refuse among the broken glass and plastic waste, lay the body of a child. The sirens that followed were a mournful chorus, signaling the end of hope and the beginning of a nightmare that would grip the entire nation.
