When I noticed Lily hiding her lunch again, I quietly followed her — until she whispered, “Daddy… I brought food,” to someone living behind our school. The sight made my heart stop. I steadied myself, grabbed my phone… And what happened next changed everything.
The recess bell rang out over Oakwood Elementary’s playground, its familiar chime signaling the end of lunch. I—Rebecca Collins—stood at my classroom door, watching my second-graders trickle back in, the faint smell of chocolate milk and peanut butter sandwiches floating in with them. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one… One missing. Lily Parker. Again. I checked my watch….