outside.
Claire stood on the front porch, visibly unsettled.
But Lily was nowhere in sight.
Moments later, Marcus approached me.
“Daniel, before you go inside, there’s something you need to know.”
He presented a photograph investigators had obtained from Patricia’s phone.
For a moment, I could barely process what I was seeing.
Because Lily wasn’t the only child visible in that photograph.
And its timestamp indicated it had been captured inside our home just twenty minutes before my arrival.
I studied the unfamiliar child’s face, trying to understand what the image revealed.
Marcus spoke quietly, explaining that officers had already discovered something unexpected upstairs.
Whatever Patricia had been arranging, the situation appeared to involve far more than Lily’s experience that afternoon.
And someone within my own family had apparently been keeping an important secret for months.
“Where is Lily?” I demanded, brushing past the photograph as cold panic gripped my
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