PART 2: THE VOICE ON THE LINE
Before I could say a word, my phone buzzed.
An unknown number had sent a message.
Stop questioning Eli.
Another followed.
If you want your daughter alive, come alone.
Then a photograph arrived.
It showed Eli and me standing in my kitchen.
It had been taken through the window only moments earlier.
I spun around.
Across the street, beneath a streetlight, stood Callum.
He raised one finger to his lips.
Then he vanished.
My phone rang.
I answered with shaking hands.
“Hello?”
For a moment, I heard only faint breathing.
Then a small voice whispered:
“Mommy?”
My knees nearly gave way.
“Maisie?”
“Please don’t trust Daddy.”
I began to cry.
“Sweetheart, where are you?”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
“I love you. I’ve never stopped looking for you.”
“I know.”
Then a man’s voice cut in.
“That’s enough.”
The call ended.
For four years, I had wondered whether my daughter was alive.
Now I had heard her voice.
And I knew her father had kept her from me.
I called Beth into the kitchen and told her everything.
When she saw the photograph, she covered her mouth.
Eli clung to her, crying.
My phone buzzed again.
You have ten minutes to decide.
The message included the address from the photograph.
I wanted to race there at once.
But Callum had threatened Eli and seemed to be watching my house.
I knew I needed help.
“Beth, call Detective Harris,” I said.
She looked frightened.
“What are you going to do?”
“Callum expects me to come alone.”
“Miriam, that’s dangerous.”
“I know. Tell the detective everything. Give him the address, the photographs, and the messages.”
She agreed, reluctantly.
I texted Callum back.
I’m coming.
His reply arrived instantly.
No police.
As I drove toward the address, my hands trembled on the steering wheel.
Callum called halfway there.
“Where are you?”
“On my way.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
I swallowed.
“Let me speak to Maisie.”
“Don’t start making demands.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s mine too.”
“Then why did you take her?”
He said nothing.
“Four years, Callum. You watched me spend four years believing she might be dead.”
“I never told you she was dead.”
I nearly missed the turn.
“No. You just let me believe it.”
He hung up.
Twenty minutes later, I reached a quiet rural property.
The white house matched the photograph.
A porch light glowed above the front door.
I parked near the mailbox.
A curtain shifted upstairs.
Then Callum appeared.
He looked older, with gray beginning to show at his temples.
But he was still unmistakably the man I had once loved.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
He glanced toward the road.
“Did anyone follow you?”
“No.”
He stepped aside.
“Come inside.”
Every instinct told me not to.
But Maisie was somewhere inside that house.
I went in.
The living room looked ordinary.
Children’s books lined a shelf.
A blue blanket was draped over the sofa.
Small sneakers sat beside the stairs.
They were too big for the five-year-old I remembered.
My daughter had grown up without me.
“Maisie!” I called.
Callum shut the door.
“Keep your voice down.”
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs.”
I started toward the staircase.
He caught my arm.
“Not yet.”
I yanked free.
“Don’t touch me.”
He insisted we needed to talk.
Then he finally revealed why he had taken her.
Months before the camping trip, we had argued about our marriage.
I had suggested that maybe we needed some time apart.
Callum believed separation would mean losing custody of Maisie.
“You would’ve taken her away from me,” he insisted.
“We could have worked things out.”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
I stared at him.
“So you made me believe our daughter had disappeared?”
He looked away.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You let the police search the lake. You helped me hang missing-person posters. You comforted me while knowing exactly where she was!”
Callum lowered his eyes.
Then footsteps sounded above us.
I turned.
A little girl stood at the top of the staircase.
Dark hair.
Blue sweater.
Bare feet.
My daughter.
She was taller now, her face no longer as round as I remembered.
But her eyes were exactly the same.
“Mommy?”
