As I followed the officer back down the stairs, the enormity of the situation began to sink in. My wife wasn’t here. She was somewhere out there, alone and possibly in danger. I felt a surge of desperation, a need to find her, to bring her back home where she belonged.

The officer guided me to his patrol car, his radio crackling to life with updates from the scene of the accident. “We’re doing everything we can,” he reassured me. “We’ll find out who did this.”