# Chapter 31: The Backpack in the Underpass
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? I hope you’re ready, because Chapter 31 of *Forget You Saw Her free digital audiobook* takes us into one of the most haunting, tender, and revealing moments yet. Tonight, the underpass becomes a confessional, a grave, and a doorway all at once. So settle in, dim the lights, and let’s walk through it together.
The chapter opens with Andrea staring at Isabel in pure amazement, blurting out that she’s like Storm from the X-Men. For the first time, Isabel smiles. But her eyes stay fixed on Sabina and Marlie—the woman Isabel calls Crow Lady. Isabel admits she didn’t mean to make the wind quite so wild; she only didn’t want Marlie to leave before she found the faded blue backpack now being pulled from the tarp shelter. Andrea and Isabel go quiet, not wanting to miss a second.
Sabina asks where Marlie got the backpack. Marlie’s eyes go wide. She says a girl was here a few years back—but she didn’t—and then the puzzle pieces begin clicking into place. Sabina pulls out her phone and asks Marlie to look at the photo again. Maybe Izzy is short for Isabel. Isabel watches with shining eyes and hands laced in front of her, like she’s praying. Desperation rolls off her like an electric current. She has been waiting to be found much longer than Andrea has.
“Yes, that’s me,” Isabel whispers. Marlie studies the photo of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl and murmurs that the girl she met looked nothing like that. She had short blue hair, was much skinnier, barely the same person. But yes—that might be her. Sabina flips to a notes app and begs Marlie to tell her everything. Then the air turns still and expectant. Marlie rasps the words that change everything: “She’s dead. An overdose.” At least, that’s what Otto—the guy who sells art on the corner—told her. Sabina clenches her jaw and winces, bracing for a blow that still hurts. Marlie didn’t find out until a few days ago. She thought the girl had simply up and left. People do that here. You share a meal one day, and they’re gone the next.
Isabel rolls her eyes and frowns, but there’s no real anger in it. “Yeah, right… I just ditched my backpack full of cash and left…” Sabina looks west, where the sun has set, and asks if Marlie can tell her anything else. Marlie remembers only that the girl seemed nervous, always looking over her shoulder. Sabina nods at the backpack and says the police will want it. She hates to send them here, but the family doesn’t even know their daughter is dead. They need to know what happened.
Andrea expects Isabel to be relieved, maybe even happy that her family will finally learn the truth. Instead, Isabel’s expression turns stormy, and the breeze kicks up sharply. Without overthinking it, Andrea steps closer and takes Isabel’s hand. The shock is like stepping into a cold pool. A wave of emotion that isn’t Andrea’s—sadness, longing, resentment, anger—pulls her under, followed by flashes of angry, disappointed faces. Andrea recognizes Mr. and Mrs. Palphreyman. In that instant, she knows she has even more in common with Isabel than she thought.
Andrea holds on until the waves soften. Then she and Isabel follow Sabina back to the car in silence while Sabina dials Detective Barker. Marlie agrees to talk. She quickly dismantles her shelter, placing the tarp and poles into her shopping cart beside a jumble of magazines. When she’s finished, she shifts nervously and glances at Isabel’s backpack lying in the dirt. “You sure I gotta talk to them?” she calls. “I already told you everything I know.” Sabina hurries back and says yes—just tell them exactly what she told Sabina. That she didn’t realize the backpack was important, or that the girl’s name was Isabel Palphreyman. Then she can go. Marlie cocks her head, glances at her cart, and something like the tiniest smirk crosses her lips, as if she’s thinking, *Go where?*
The sky turns dusky purple while they wait. Sabina texts Joel that she has news about Isabel Palphreyman and promises to call soon—but she doesn’t mention the underpass. Andrea keeps looking for the white Accord, but there’s no sign of Dennis. She wishes she hadn’t scared him away. Maybe the police would have caught sight of him stalking the woman he’d filed a restraining order against. Isabel says little, just stares at her backpack and keeps her arms folded around her middle, as if trying to hug herself. When the unmarked car pulls up, Sabina lets out a breath of relief. Marlie cringes and clutches the shopping cart’s faded red handle like she might run. She doesn’t. Voice shaking, she repeats exactly what she told Sabina, then hurries down the street the moment Detective Barker says she can go.
Barker bags the backpack, just as he did with the earring, and gives Sabina a strange look—one part grudging admiration, one part confusion. He works his jaw, then says, “Thanks. I’ll make sure this gets processed.” Then he asks what made her come here tonight. Sabina raises an eyebrow, assessing whether he’s accusing her of something. After a beat, she shrugs and mentions Jenny Johnson from Nadia’s Facebook group, who claimed she saw Andrea at a soup kitchen. Sabina had been meaning to check out the popular encampments anyway, and then she wondered if maybe there was a reason “Jenny” had this area on her mind. Barker doesn’t reply, but something flickers in his blue eyes.
He lifts his chin toward where Marlie hurried off and offers to walk Sabina to her car, strongly recommending she get home. This isn’t the safest area. A fresh gust of wind sprays dirt across his clean black pants, and Isabel mutters, “You think?” Sabina sighs but doesn’t protest when Barker falls into step beside her, swatting at the dust. When Isabel doesn’t follow, Andrea turns to face her. “Come on. You’re not staying here, right?” Panic snakes through Andrea at the idea Isabel might say no. Isabel glances back at the underpass, which looks every bit as scary as Andrea imagined it would at night. Andrea still can’t believe Isabel lived here.
Andrea reaches for Isabel’s hand again, and Isabel lets her take it. Instantly, Andrea knows what Isabel is thinking: fear of walking away from her view of the cemetery, distress at leaving the familiar place she haunted for three years, despair that even though the police know she’s dead now, nobody will ever really know what happened to her. “Sabina won’t let anyone forget us,” Andrea insists, letting go before she gets lost in the threads of memory hiding in the shadow of all that emotion. Sabina is already getting back into the car. The last thing they need is to lose her. “Come on,” Andrea calls, rushing ahead.
Before getting into Sabina’s car, Andrea peers beneath the vehicle and scans the underside. There, just as she suspected, is a tiny black square that looks slightly out of place. “Bastard,” she mutters, slamming her hand as hard as she can against the tracker—which, of course, does absolutely nothing. The engine rumbles to life as Andrea slips through the tiny opening between the passenger-side window and its frame. To her relief, Isabel is right behind her. Andrea remembers wishing she’d gotten the chance to be Isabel’s friend. Maybe that’s still possible.
They are silent for a few minutes while Sabina drives toward the Airbnb, gaining speed through the quiet streets. Then Isabel says wistfully, “I like your mom.” She holds out her hand. “I think we can like… show each other stuff this way. Do you want… do you want to know what he…” She trails off, but Andrea knows what she’s asking. The somber, eager hope in Isabel’s voice is unmistakable. The idea that somebody—anybody—would know exactly what Andrea went through makes her feel less alone than she has since she took her last breath. “Yeah,” Andrea says, nodding somberly. “I’ll show you what happened to me, too.”
Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating: This chapter is a gut punch wrapped in a ghost story. The reveal of Isabel’s identity and death lands with quiet devastation, and Marlie’s mix of guilt, survival, and detachment feels painfully real. But the heart of the chapter is the growing bond between Andrea and Isabel—two ghosts who have been waiting to be seen, heard, and understood. Sabina’s fierce love and detective work keep the tension alive, while the tracker under the car reminds us that danger is still following them. I loved the emotional hand-holding scenes, the way memories pass between them like cold water, and the final promise to share their deepest wounds.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
Next Chapter Prediction: The next chapter will almost certainly take us into the memory exchange between Andrea and Isabel. Isabel’s unfinished question—“Do you want to know what he…”—points to a man who hurt her, and Andrea’s own story likely involves Dennis. I predict we’ll finally see the night Isabel died, whether it was truly an overdose or something darker, and we’ll learn more about the white Accord and the tracker under Sabina’s car. Dennis may escalate his stalking, while Detective Barker begins to suspect that “Jenny Johnson” and Nadia’s Facebook group are not as innocent as they seem. Emotionally, Andrea and Isabel will become closer than ever—but that closeness may also force them to confront the violence that ended their lives.
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