The Name on the Broadcast

Summary

Twenty years after my mother’s death, I heard a missing person announcement on the campus radio.

"Natalie Hayes, female, missing for twenty-one years."

"Nineteen years old at the time of disappearance. Literature major at South City State University..."

My blood ran cold.

Natalie Hayes. Wasn't that my mother’s name?

It turned out my mother had been kidnapped and sold to our family. Our entire town was a ring of human traffickers.

I remembered the day she tried to run away. I hugged her legs tightly and screamed, "Mom, please don't leave me!"

Then my father locked her in the woodshed.