Chapter 2: The Footage Had Finished Uploading
Part 2 ⬇️
The silence lasted maybe three seconds.
Then Patricia straightened in her chair and smiled.
"She wanted to stay," she said.
"Mia asked to wait there.
I respected her wishes."
I felt Mia flinch against my arm.
"Baby," I said quietly, "did you ask to stay in the garage?"
Mia shook her head.
She wouldn't look at her grandmother.
Daniel finally spoke.
"Mom, she's six."
"She was perfectly safe," Patricia said.
"I checked on her."
That was a lie.
The garage had no signal.
I had called Mia's name for forty minutes across four levels of concrete before I found her.
Then Daniel's sister, Karen, put down her fork.
"Patricia," she said slowly, "which grandchildren did you take shopping?"
Patricia glanced at the bags around her chair.
"All of them," she said.
Karen looked at me.
Then at Mia.
Then back at Patricia.
"Mia wasn't with you," Karen said.
"I saw you at the mall, Patricia.
You had the boys.
You had Emma.
You never had Mia."
The table went completely still.
Patricia's hand moved toward her purse.
And that's when my phone buzzed.
A notification from the parking garage security app I had opened while searching for Mia.
The footage had finished uploading.
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What the security footage showed made everyone at that table go silent.
Click the link below to read the full story — the truth is worse than anyone expected.
