Chapter 3

The footage showed me stopping the car and gathering our things while my daughter hopped out.

A second later, my mother-in-law grabbed her and pulled her behind the car.

After that, my daughter never appeared again.

My chest heaved. A loud buzzing filled my ears.

Just then, my mother-in-law arrived and opened the door.

I lunged at her and grabbed her collar.

“Tell me where you hid my daughter! Why would you do this?”

Her expression changed before she forced herself to look calm.

“Oh, I just put her in the trunk to give you a scare. I thought I’d test how well these police officers do their jobs while I was at it.”

“It’s Halloween! Can’t any of you take a joke?”

I had no time to argue. I let go of her and ran outside.

My daughter had asthma. Being trapped in a trunk for that long could kill her!

But when I reached the car and threw open the trunk, gasping for breath, it was empty.

My knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the ground.

The others arrived a moment later. Their expressions changed when they saw the empty trunk.

I lunged at my mother-in-law, ready to tear her apart, but an officer held me back.

She slapped her thigh, dropped to the ground, and began wailing.

“You can’t blame me! I only hid her in the trunk as a joke.”

“How was I supposed to know she’d disappear? She has legs. She must have run off somewhere!”

An officer tried to reassure me.

“Mrs. Bennett, we’ll keep searching. We’ll do everything we can to find your child.”

“We already have officers reviewing the security footage.”

A call came through soon afterward.

Unfortunately, the back of our car had been in a blind spot.

The cameras hadn’t captured anything that happened there.

To trace my daughter’s movements, they would have to keep checking cameras in the surrounding area.

The world seemed to spin around me.

My daughter was missing, and she had asthma.

Every minute we lost put her in greater danger!

I turned to my mother-in-law and softened my voice, hoping she still had a conscience.

“Margaret, haven’t you had enough? I’m begging you. Stop lying and tell me where my daughter is!”

“If you locked her in the trunk, how could she possibly get out?”

My mother-in-law curled her lip and looked away.

“I left after I put her in there. Maybe I didn’t close it properly and she climbed out.”

“I told you that little brat was ungrateful. Maybe she left you to find a richer family.”

I glared at her. Something in my eyes frightened her enough to shut her mouth.

As everyone struggled to figure out where to search next, something occurred to me.

I looked toward the back of the car.