Chapter 2: The Phone Turned Face-Down
Part 2 ⬇️
The silence lasted maybe three seconds.
Then Patricia straightened in her chair and smiled.
"She wanted to stay.
She said she was tired."
I felt Mia press closer against my side.
"She's six, Patricia."
"Children that age say all kinds of things.
I checked on her."
Daniel's sister nodded slowly, like that settled it.
That's when something in me went cold.
I looked at Daniel.
He was staring at the table.
"Daniel.
Did you know she wasn't with them?"
He didn't answer.
"Daniel."
"I thought Mom had it handled," he said quietly.
I turned back to Patricia.
Her eyes had shifted — not to me, not to Mia.
To her phone, sitting face-down beside her plate.
"Who did you text at 2:47?" I asked.
Her hand moved to cover it.
That was all I needed to see.
I picked up my own phone and opened the photo I had taken in the garage — Mia alone, curled against the pillar, her little shoes pointed inward the way she stands when she's trying not to cry.
I turned the screen toward the table.
Daniel's mother looked away.
But Daniel's father didn't.
He stared at that photo for a long moment, then set down his fork.
"Patricia," he said.
Just her name.
Nothing else.
And the way she flinched told me he already knew something I didn't.
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What Patricia's husband knew — and why he'd stayed silent for years — is the part that changes everything.
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