Borrowed Daughter
01I was at the playground with my daughter when a boy ran up and asked, “Mister, can you give me your little girl?”I laughed it off. “She’s my whole world. No way I’m handing her to you.”Then he asked, “If she died, would you be really sad?”A chill ran right through me.I’d never seen this kid before. The playground had been funded by the shops on our block, and I knew most of the children who played there.I figured the boy might be scouting for traffickers, so I took my daughter home. I told her to stay away from that playground for a while, not to go near that boy, not to take snacks from him, and never to go anywhere with him. She nodded.A few days later, she told me she’d seen the boy leading the baker’s little girl across the street and didn’t know where they went. She almost followed but remembered what I’d said and stayed put.The bakery was run by a single mom and her daughter. The mother’s name was Hannah Lane, and the girl, Keira, was four. Everyone in the neighborhood looked out for them.I called Hannah right away. No answer. She must have been out delivering a cake.About an hour and a half later, Hannah burst into my shop like a storm, grabbed my daughter, and cried, “Where did Keira go? Tell me, please!”My girl was terrified and couldn’t get the words out. I told Hannah to call the police. We went searching together, but the trail vanished once they crossed the street.The police moved fast. Based on my description and nearby camera footage, they found the boy that night. His name was Logan Cole.Logan insisted he hadn’t taken Keira. His parents backed him up and swore he’d been home all day.Then the officers showed them the footage, and the lie fell apart. Logan mumbled, “I’m not twelve yet, so I won’t have to go to jail, right?”
02Logan led us to an abandoned construction site and pointed at a small pit in the ground. “She’s in there.”The officers scraped away the loose dirt and pulled out a foam cooler, the kind couriers use.They opened the lid. Keira was curled up inside. Her eyes were open, her mouth slightly parted, and fear was frozen in those big eyes.Hannah broke down on the spot. She lunged at Logan, and the officers had to hold her back.They told Logan to walk them through what he’d done. His account was so clear it made my skin crawl.He said he’d found the pit and got the idea to “bury something alive.”First he tried a stray cat, but it darted out and he failed.So he switched the target to “a child.”The pit was small. Logan tied two shoelaces together to measure it. Whenever he spotted a possible target, he’d size the kid up with the laces, then make a move if the measurements seemed right.He also said he picked only girls. They fought back less, and their bodies were softer and easier to fold.“Did you kill her first, then bury her?” someone asked.Logan shook his head. “I had her lie down in it herself.”He set up a little game. First he brought two big cardboard boxes and told Keira to lie in one. He gave her chocolate so she would think they were playing.Then he had her crawl into the foam cooler he’d already set in the pit. Keira didn’t suspect a thing.“Once she was inside, I put a plank over it, stacked a few paving stones on top, then covered it with dirt.”Logan said she struggled under the board, so he jumped on it a few times. After that, Keira stopped moving.Hannah didn’t make it to the end of his statement. She fainted, and the officers rushed her to the hospital.I heard a couple of veteran cops mutter, “We’ve done this job for years and never seen anything like this. If his parents weren’t here, we’d—” They cut themselves off and walked away, fists clenched.
03News about Keira spread fast, and neighbors came asking for Logan Cole’s address, saying they wanted to stand up for Hannah and her girl.The police warned me not to share any of Logan’s information, since juvenile records are protected by law, and said I would be liable if I leaked anything.A few days later, Hannah showed up in my shop in tears and said the police were about to drop the case.Logan was under twelve, so he had no criminal liability. By statute the police had to close it.I was stunned. Logan had taken a life, yet he would not see a courtroom, let alone prison. How was that justice.Hannah sobbed and said, “They told me even if I file on my own, the DA won’t take it. At best I can sue his parents for money, but who can pay me back my child.”It got worse. Logan’s parents would not apologize. They stopped taking Hannah’s calls.Even through the police they said they were busy and had no time to deal with her.My wife could not stand it and brought Hannah some soup. “Moms do what we can. Some tragedies no one can fix. You are still young. Find someone, have another child, think of it as Keira coming back.”Hannah’s voice was raw. “I cannot get past this. Every time I close my eyes, I hear her crying in front of me, saying she cannot rest. It feels like my heart is getting stabbed over and over.”We were all parents. We told Hannah to bring Keira home first, arrange the funeral, and think about court after.The wake was set up in Hannah’s bakery. Everyone came. People said the same well-meant lines, and Hannah cried until she went numb.At the meal after, Jack from the roast-duck place said Hannah should have watched her kid better. A group of women lit into him. “Try minding a child for a full day. You still have to eat, don’t you.”Big Warren, the butcher, took a hard drag on his cigarette. “If this happened to me, I would carve that little bastard even if it meant prison. Shame a good woman like Hannah has no man to fight for her.”Hannah had almost no family, so when it got busy my wife and I helped greet people.My daughter was playing by the door. I called her over and told her not to wander. She nodded without a word.It threw me off. She usually sassed me a little. Why was she so quiet today.She grinned and showed the chocolate stuck to her teeth. She had bad cavities, so we had banned sweets.“Did Hannah give you that.”She shook her head. “The boy did.”“Which boy.”“The one who took Keira. He said she did not finish these and gave them to me.”
04Cold sweat broke across my back. I handed my daughter to my wife and told her not to let the child out of her sight for a single second.I took a few men and searched the blocks nearby. We did not find Logan. He must have run.The more I thought about it, the worse it felt. What if Logan grabbed my daughter and found another hole for her.I would not let that happen.That night I told Hannah about Logan coming around for my girl. Hannah’s eyes went wide and she gripped my arm. “Tell me sooner next time, I will kill him.”I stared at the black-and-white photo of Keira smiling with those little fangs and made up my mind. “Do you really want payback. I have a way, and I can keep you out of prison.”Hannah agreed without a second thought.I let my daughter play as usual while we watched from the shadows, tracking Logan’s habits.Hannah and I took turns for almost a month. At last I spotted Logan skulking near the playground.I called my daughter and told her to head home now. Logan followed, just like I expected.I tailed him in my van and grabbed him on a street with no cameras.I dragged him to Hannah’s storage room. She set Keira’s photo on the table, lit a stick of incense, and whispered, “Sweetheart, Mom will let you rest today.”Logan cried and fought. “Mister, Hannah, I am a kid. How can you hurt a kid.”Hannah did not hesitate. She tried to force him into the dough mixer.He weighed about a hundred and ten pounds, and the mixer’s capacity was around a hundred and forty-three, but getting a person in there was almost impossible.One leg stuck out. Hannah grabbed a heavy wooden mallet, slammed his joints, snapped the leg, and shoved it inside.I had no idea how she meant to finish it. Our plan had only been that I would take Logan and she would avenge Keira.She flipped the switch. The spinning arm ripped a wide strip of flesh from him.Logan screamed. “I will never kill again. I will be good. Please forgive me.”I could not stand it and hit the stop button. “Don’t do this. End it quick.”Hannah, eyes bloodshot, slapped something down in front of me.It was a brand-new shoelace, two tied together, the same length as my daughter’s height.I stepped aside. Hannah turned the mixer up all the way.His screams faded under the roar. Half an hour later, we slid what could no longer be called a body into the bakery oven.Hannah threw in a few loaves to cover the smell. It was her usual baking time, so no one would suspect the smoke.When it was done, she swept the ash out of the firebox, then put out bread she had bought from somewhere else.I handed Hannah the statement and the answers I had prepared. “Now the real fight starts. The police will question you again and again. Are you ready.”Her voice was steady to the point of cold. “Relax. I will not trade my life for a monster.”
05The day after Logan disappeared, five or six officers walked into Hannah’s bakery.I called the neighbors to back her up. Dozens showed, and the cops got jumpy. “What are you doing here. Assaulting an officer is a felony.”Big Warren raised his voice. “Officer, we’re not here to start a fight, we just want to know why you are investigating the victim instead of going after the killer.”A veteran cop with rank on his shoulder stepped forward. “I understand how you feel, but we closed the case by the book. We have to follow procedure.”Jack shot back, “An old man slipped outside my shop and tried to shake me down for money. Your people called him vulnerable and made me pay. Funny how the rules mattered less that day.”The officer fell silent. The crowd boiled over. “Hannah, don’t be scared. The louder side wins. We will go to the station with you every day.”Hannah came out and calmed everyone. “Thank you for looking out for me, but Keira’s death was not the police’s fault. They found the culprit quickly. I am grateful. Please go home and let them do their job.”She handled it well. I had told her to show cooperation and give the police a good impression.Cops are human. If they feel for Hannah, they will not dig as hard. Then she can clear the hurdle.The veteran wiped sweat from his brow. “Quite a turnout. Seems like people care about you.”Hannah poured tea and gave a tired smile. “We run small businesses, not like you, Officer. No one pays us a salary. When trouble hits, no one steps in. We get by by helping each other. So, what brings you here today.”She handed him a cup of Earl Grey. He thanked her and slid a card across the table. Ethan Stone.“I was there the day we searched for Keira, and I am truly sorry for what happened. Today we are here about Logan Cole.”“Yesterday his parents reported him missing. Given what happened between you, we have to consider the possibility you are connected. Don’t get upset. This is routine and does not mean you are a suspect.”I knew Ethan was not telling the whole truth. If this were a normal missing persons call, they would not have brought this many officers.They suspected Hannah of killing Logan, and they were here to find proof.We had rehearsed for hours on how to handle questioning.Hannah did something I did not expect. She set her wrist on the table. “Yes, I killed him. Take me in.”
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