Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
We went out to the gravel driveway where my mother, Clara, was weeding the small flowerbed near the porch. Her wire-rimmed reading glasses were slid down her nose, and she looked up at us with her quiet, sharp eyes.
“What did they say, Andrew?” she asked, rising slowly and wiping her dirt-stained palms on her apron.
“They want forty thousand dollars,” I said. “By Monday morning.”
Clara adjusted her glasses, her Southern drawl steady but thin. “We do not even know if that photograph is real, son. We need to look at what the police found six years ago. There might be something in those old sheriff reports we missed.”
Patrick looked up at her, his face pale. “They said they would put her back in the water if we go to the law.”
“We do not have to tell them why we are asking,” Clara said, her voice firm. “But we need to know what they wrote down about that day.”
