# Chapter 18: The Silence That Let a Monster Stay
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 18 of "Forget You Saw Her free digital audiobook". This chapter is a raw, furious, heartbreaking descent into the failures that surrounded Andrea’s disappearance. It is set in Ogden, Utah, in 2015, and it picks up with Sabina sitting across from Nadia, having just heard rumors about Isabel Palphreyman. What follows is less a conversation and more an excavation of buried pain.
Sabina is shaking with rage by the time Nadia finishes speaking. Nadia sits back in her chair, eyes troubled, and remembers Isabel as a really nice girl—kind, polite, the sort of young woman who once babysat Paloma and brought a whole bag of coloring books and toys with her. But after what happened with Dennis Beaumont, everything fell apart for Isabel. She left home. She lost contact with her parents years later. Sabina mutters, “No wonder,” as she picks at the spout of her juice container until pale green droplets leak down the side and onto her hand.
She asks the question that burns in her throat: So nobody believed Isabel at the time? And Dennis stayed on as some kind of priest? Nadia nods, staring down at her laced fingers. According to what she later learned, hardly anyone knew the story—aside from Isabel’s parents and the bishop. Nadia didn’t hear about it until years after they had moved out of the Eighteenth Ward, when an old friend who knew the Palphreymans told her what she knew. Sabina seethes. It is incredibly messed up. Especially after Nadia had told church leaders about the bathroom incident when they made Dennis a counselor. How could they ignore so many red flags?
Nadia bites her lip and stays silent for a few seconds, as if the words want to stay trapped inside her. Then she says she heard Dennis stopped going to church a while back. There was a rumor he got disfellowshipped. Sabina doesn’t know the church lingo, so she asks what that means—was he excommunicated? Nadia explains it is not exactly that. It means he did something the church leaders took seriously. He couldn’t hold callings anymore. He couldn’t take the sacrament. Sabina blinks, stunned. So he wasn’t allowed to eat the bread and wine anymore? What about the police? Why didn’t anybody call the police?
Nadia keeps her eyes on the floor and says they use water, not wine. But she has no idea. She doesn’t know the details. She starts to say she understands how upset Sabina must be, but Sabina cuts her off. She is not upset. She is furious. This is sickening. This bastard was preying on girls that whole time, and nobody even—
Nadia tries to explain. If it was anything like what happened with Isabel, there probably wasn’t proof. Just Andrea’s word against someone else’s. Sabina slams her hand down on the side table, nearly toppling Nadia’s juice and making her flinch. “That’s bullshit, and you know it,” she says. People get arrested for less every day. Someone should have contacted the police. Has Nadia told them what she heard about Isabel? Why haven’t they arrested Dennis or searched his house? He did something to Andrea. Sabina knows he did.
And in that moment, she can no longer pretend Andrea is simply hiding in some unsearched corner of Ogden like a lost puppy, scared and waiting to be found. That realization makes her hands shake with fresh grief, mingling with the old grief like a bursting dam.
Nadia says she shares Sabina’s anger. She told the police everything she knew when they interviewed her. Everything she suspected. She gave them the bishop’s name, the Palphreymans’ names. She begged them to search Dennis’s house. Paloma told them everything she knows, too. So why haven’t they arrested him? Sabina cries, her voice just shy of a scream.
Nadia asked the same thing weeks ago. The detective assigned to the case told her he can’t get a search warrant on suspicion—he needs probable cause. From what she understands, they have nothing to contradict Dennis and Bunny’s claim that Andrea ran away from home. No witnesses. Nothing. Sabina insists there has to be some witness, something they’re overlooking. She squeezes her eyes shut in despair. Nadia is right. If the police had any lead that would secure a warrant, surely they would have done it by now.
Nadia sighs heavily. Last year, Paloma told one of their teachers about bruises she’d seen on Andrea’s back when Andrea leaned over at her desk. The teacher probably wasn’t supposed to tell Paloma the outcome of that report, but when Paloma asked, he said he had contacted CPS. They interviewed Andrea at school and concluded there wasn’t any evidence she was being abused at home. Andrea told them she bruised easily and had a rowdy puppy.
Sabina remembers the baby she once held in her arms, the delicate skin of her tear-stained cheeks pressed against hers. The idea that Dennis might have bruised that perfect skin makes her want to curl up on the floor and howl. Instead, she demands, “What the fuck is wrong with everyone?” Her voice is full of splinters as she holds Nadia’s gaze. The picture forming of her daughter’s life in Ogden grows worse by the minute.
Nadia flinches again and moves away from Sabina ever so slightly, like Sabina is a snake about to strike. But she doesn’t look away. They stare at each other, Sabina’s heart thundering in her ears, and for a minute Sabina is sure Nadia will ask her to leave Desert Greens. Nadia didn’t have to tell her any of this. Regret trickles through the anger pulsing in Sabina’s veins. She had been polite to the point of pandering with Bunny, and here she is practically screaming at this woman who closed her business for the morning just to tell Sabina everything she knew.
“I’m sorry,” Sabina whispers, choking on a fresh wave of tears. “I shouldn’t have yelled. You and your daughter at least tried to help Andrea. No one else has done anything.”
Nadia’s voice is small. “You’re not wrong to be angry. And I’m not defending anybody’s actions. I can’t stop thinking about what I should have done differently, what might have happened if… if I’d confronted Dennis Beaumont myself.” She draws in a shuddering breath. The church leaders handled things wrong. She keeps thinking that maybe if Isabel Palphreyman or her parents had gone to the police back when all of that happened, instead of going to the bishop…
Sabina draws in a sharp breath. The words suddenly spark an idea. “Hang on,” she says, pulling out her phone to do a quick Google search. This happened eight years ago, give or take? She doubts that is past the statute of limitations for sexual assault. An answer pops up on her screen: Isabel’s assault was well within the statute of limitations. Sabina’s heart beats faster. Even if Isabel’s parents and the bishop didn’t believe her back then, Isabel could still go to the police now. And maybe that would be enough for a search warrant. Do you know how we could get in touch with Isabel—
Nadia looks up at her and shakes her head sadly. “That’s another heartbreaking story.”
The chapter ends there, leaving us with a door creaking open—and another slamming shut.
Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating: This chapter is devastating in the best possible way. It takes the quiet horror of Andrea’s disappearance and turns it into an indictment of silence, misplaced trust, and institutional failure. Sabina’s rage is so real it practically burns off the page, but what makes the chapter land is the grief underneath it—the image of Andrea as a baby, the bruised skin, the lost puppy metaphor, the terrible realization that people knew and still did nothing. Nadia is not a villain here; she is another person haunted by what she should have done. The chapter is painful, necessary, and impossible to forget. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5.0 / 5 Stars
Next Chapter Prediction: The next chapter will almost certainly reveal Isabel Palphreyman’s “another heartbreaking story.” I suspect Isabel is either dead, missing, institutionalized, or so broken by what happened that she cannot or will not help. Sabina will want to find her anyway, hoping Isabel’s testimony could finally give police the probable cause they need to search Dennis Beaumont’s house. But Bunny will likely sense the danger and make a move—maybe threatening Sabina, hiding evidence, or accelerating some terrible plan. The truth about Andrea is close, but so is the danger. To listen free the next reviews chatpers, please access website novelsaudio.com and search keyword: Forget You Saw Her free digital audiobook or click the link in the description of this video or if you want to listen or read full the Forget You Saw Her free digital audiobook please access website Novelsaudio.com