Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
The copper watering can slipped from Patrick’s fingers and hit the dirt with a dull clang.
In the grey light before dawn, our annual patch of giant sunflowers lay ruined. Dozens of thick, hairy stalks had been sliced clean at the base, their heavy yellow heads scattered across the damp soil like dropped plates.
I rubbed my left temple, trying to make sense of the clearing. Patrick, my twelve-year-old son, scrambled forward and knelt in the mud.
“Dad, look at them,” Patrick said, his voice rising with that rapid, breathless eagerness he got when he was panicked. “Who would do this today of all days?”
Today was the sixth anniversary of the afternoon we lost Lily in the county road pond. Every year on this date, we came out at five in the morning to water these flowers before the rest of the county woke up.
I looked at the clean angles of the cuts on the stems. Someone had used sharp shears, working quickly in the dark.
Patrick clutched the silver pocket watch he always kept in his pocket, his thumb running over the engraved cover. “They did not even take them, Dad, they just left them to die.”
My eyes followed the path of destruction toward the center of the patch, where a single, massive stalk still stood untouched.
Tied to the green stem, about four feet up, was a small white cardboard box.
“Do not touch it yet,” I said, my voice slow and deliberate as I reached out to pull Patrick back by his shoulder.
The box was clean, dry, and wrapped in a thick white satin ribbon that caught the pale morning light.
“We need to bring it inside,” Patrick said, his eyes wide as he stared at the white package.
I carried the box up to the farmhouse porch, the cardboard feeling strangely light in my palms. Patrick walked so close behind me I could hear his shallow breathing.
My mother, Clara, met us at the door, her wire-rimmed reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. She took one look at the box, then looked past us toward the empty garden patch.
