CHAPTER 6 — The Day Lily Disappeared
CHAPTER 6 — The Day Lily Disappeared
Saturday morning arrived bright and warm.
Marcus decided they needed a normal day.
No lawyers.
No investigators.
No security meetings.
Just breakfast.
Then the annual Alpine Children's Summer Festival.
Lily practically bounced with excitement.
"There'll be ponies!"
"And balloons!"
"And face painting!"
Marcus laughed.
"And probably too much cotton candy."
She gasped dramatically.
"There is never too much cotton candy."
Even Clara laughed.
The festival overflowed with families.
Children ran through inflatable castles.
Music drifted across the park.
Volunteers handed out lemonade.
Marcus insisted on walking without bodyguards hovering nearby.
"They deserve one peaceful afternoon," he told security.
Two plainclothes officers followed from a respectful distance.
Everything felt... normal.
Lily rode the carousel twice.
Won a stuffed giraffe at a ring toss.
Dragged Marcus onto a giant slide despite his obvious reluctance.
Clara took pictures of both of them laughing at the bottom.
It was the happiest day Lily had experienced since losing her parents.
Around two o'clock, Marcus's phone vibrated.
Richard Bennett.
Urgent.
"I have to take this," Marcus said.
He stepped twenty feet away.
Clara knelt beside Lily.
"Stay where I can see you, okay?"
"Okay!"
Lily skipped toward the face-painting booth only a few yards away.
Clara looked down for less than ten seconds to wipe spilled lemonade from the stroller.
When she looked up—
Lily was gone.
The little pink sunhat had disappeared into the crowd.
Clara froze.
"Lily?"
Nothing.
She stood.
"Lily!"
Parents turned.
Children kept playing.
No answer.
Her heartbeat exploded.
Marcus returned.
"What's wrong?"
Clara's face had gone completely white.
"I..."
She couldn't breathe.
"I can't find her."
Marcus stared.
"What?"
"Lily's gone."
For one endless second neither of them moved.
Then Marcus shouted loud enough for the entire festival to hear.
"LOCK THE GATES!"
Heads turned everywhere.
The two security officers reacted instantly.
Police already assigned to the event rushed toward every exit.
Parents pulled their own children closer.
Marcus was already running.
"LILY!"
His voice echoed across the park.
No answer.
Ten minutes.
Nothing.
Fifteen minutes.
Still nothing.
Every passing second became unbearable.
Police officers searched bathrooms.
Storage buildings.
Parking lots.
The nearby woods.
Clara could barely stand.
"This is my fault."
Marcus grabbed both her shoulders.
"No."
"I looked away."
"For seconds."
"I failed her."
"You didn't."
But even Marcus's own voice trembled.
Because the fear inside him was becoming impossible to control.
Then one officer sprinted toward them.
"We found something."
Everyone ran.
Near the eastern parking lot, lying beside a bench...
was Lily's stuffed giraffe.
Its ear had been torn.
Next to it...
a small pink shoe.
Clara collapsed to her knees.
Marcus felt the world tilt beneath him.
The police chief slowly approached.
"We're treating this as a possible abduction."
Marcus's face turned deathly pale.
Then another officer's radio crackled.
"Unit Seven to Command..."
"We've recovered CCTV from the south entrance."
"There appears to be a female suspect."
The image sharpened.
A woman wearing oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap held the hand of a little girl in a pink dress.
The child looked frightened.
The woman kept her head lowered.
But when she briefly looked toward the camera...
Marcus stopped breathing.
It was Vanessa.
She had taken Lily.
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To Be Continued...
V
