Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
“This paper was not made recently, Andrew,” George said. “Look at the yellowing around the chemical pod at the bottom.”
“It looks like the kind they stopped selling ten years ago,” I said.
“But the girl in the picture is twelve,” George said, his short, declarative sentence falling like a hammer. “Lily would be twelve today.”
The realization hit me like a physical blow, stripping away the six years of quiet grief I had forced myself to accept.
“If she drowned in the pond,” I said, pausing to swallow the dryness in my throat, “who is this girl?”
George did not answer. He turned the photo over again, scratching the silver serial number with his thumbnail.
“Someone is playing a game,” George said. “We do not have forty thousand dollars to throw away on games.”
“Where would we even get that kind of money?” I asked.
George looked out toward the fields. “There is the blue folder in the safe. The savings bonds.”
