I assumed it was ordinary teenage privacy.
I never imagined those words would haunt me.
One rainy Tuesday afternoon, Amelia never came home from school.
At first I thought she’d missed the bus.
Then I called her phone.
Straight to voicemail.
Her teachers said she’d left school at the normal time.
Her friends hadn’t seen her afterward.
By nightfall, police officers filled my living room.
Search teams combed the woods.