Welcome to Case Closed.

You're listening to Dirt Creek by Haley Scrivener, narrated by Sophie Lockren.

Let's pick up where we left off last time.

Constance.

Friday 30th of November, 2001.

Now, when people ask Constance Bianchi if she has children,

she tells them she always wanted to be an astronaut.

This is not an answer to their question, and most of the time they laugh.

In her work now, she has to smile, joke, so she adds, hard to take a buggy into space, you know?

What she can't tell them is she still wants to be an astronaut.

The thought of orbiting the earth, floating somewhere cold and clean, no one to talk to

but mission control, is calming.

It makes the days easier.

There are no babies in space.

Constance had always thought the girls at her all-girl school were stupid for wanting

children, for being so desperate to trade one's stifled life for another. But then, look where

Constance had ended up. If she'd still been in touch with any one of her schoolmates in the late

90s, they might well have wondered what the hell she was doing

in that town. She was the kind of woman who belonged in a city. When they saw Steve,

some of it would have made sense. Constance's handsome Italian husband was explanation enough.

Who wouldn't follow that man wherever he wanted to go?

When Constance hung up from that first phone call with Evelyn Thompson on Friday afternoon,

...