The Girl on the News

My heart pounds as I take in the headline: ‘Missing girl believed kidnapped’. Underneath is a photo of my beautiful daughter Mia, her gap-toothed grin unmistakable. But Mia is safe beside me, snuggled up on the sofa. Who has taken a photo of her, and put it on the news? And what message are they trying to send me…? I run to the window of our little house–the cosy, homely place my husband Mark and I bought so Mia could have everything I didn’t as a child–and pull the curtains tightly shut, hiding us from sight as terror courses through my body. Why would someone pretend my daughter has been taken? Unless it’s not a threat, but a warning. A hint of what might be to come… Memories flash through my mind of news reports from twenty years ago: when my own name was in the headlines. The accusation of murder. The loss of my best friend. I was just a child, but that didn’t save me… is someone from my dark past sending me a message? Then my worst nightmares come true. Mia is taken, snatched from