I dragged Cody over to the window.

He was a scrawny twelve-year-old and couldn’t fight back.

Wendy started punching and kicking me.

A glass vase smashed against my head, and blood streamed into my eyes, turning my vision red.

But I couldn’t feel the pain.

My daughter, my beloved Lily, was my only reason for living.

If Cody didn’t tell me where she was, I was going to kill this monster.

“Talk! Where is my daughter? If you don’t tell me, I’ll throw you out of this window and you’ll be splattered on the pavement!”

At first, Cody just had a sick little smile on his face, but when he saw I was serious, fear finally flickered in his eyes.

He started trembling and pointed a shaky finger downstairs.

I looked down, but all I saw was a patch of lawn.

Empty.

But then, a possibility so horrific it made my blood run cold flooded my mind, and I went completely insane.

I lunged forward, my hands closing around Cody’s neck.

Just then, I heard Mark’s panicked voice from the doorway. “Sarah, are you crazy! What are you doing? He’s just a kid! Taking your anger out on a child, have you lost your damn mind!”

Mark started hitting me on the head, but my hands just squeezed tighter.

As Cody’s face turned purple from lack of air, I saw a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes.

The monster.

Mark was still screaming at me. “You psycho, Sarah! You want to find your daughter? Then go find wherever that little brat ran off to play!”

The word “daughter” snapped me back to reality.

I let go of Cody and stumbled out of the apartment.

My scalp was tingling. I couldn’t hear the neighbors gossiping around me, just a loud roaring in my ears.

My Lily.

I dropped to my knees on the lawn and started clawing at the dirt with my bare hands.

I had seen Cody bury a tortured kitten here once.

Could it be… could my daughter be here too…

I couldn’t let myself think it.

Everyone was gathering around me now. They were all saying I’d gone insane.

Mark rushed over and slapped me across the face, trying to snap me out of it.

I screamed at him, my voice raw, that I wanted a divorce.

Mark just stared at me, lost. He shook his head, backing away. “No. No, I can’t divorce you. If we get a divorce, what will people say? How am I supposed to keep my job at the university? My tenure review is this year, Sarah. I can’t have anything messing that up!”

I was completely and utterly done.

After all these years of marriage, I was only now seeing this man for who he truly was.

Our daughter’s life was on the line, and all he cared about was his career.

I laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “Your career has nothing to do with me! I have one last question for you. What kind of hold does this woman have on you that makes you do whatever she says?”

Mark looked nervous. He tried to deny it, shaking his head frantically.

But Wendy didn’t care. She laughed, a loud, triumphant sound. “It’s because he felt guilty for dumping me back then, all because his family looked down on me. Mark’s always been trying to make it up to me. And, more importantly, I have pictures of us in bed together…”

“Shut up!” Mark lunged at Wendy, trying to cover her mouth, and suddenly, it all made sense.

I advanced on him, step by step. “So that’s it. That’s why you treated our daughter so horribly? That’s why she had to suffer so much from such a young age, always giving in to everyone else? Because of your guilt and regret over Wendy, you made Lily pay for it, made her bear a pain that was never hers to carry! To protect your career and keep those pictures from getting out, you became her puppet!”

Mark wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t.

The strange looks from the neighbors, their pointing and whispering—it was all too much for a self-important university professor like him to bear.

He blamed it all on me, hitting my back over and over.

He stomped on the little hole I had just dug, flattening it.

Then Mark shoved me hard, and I fell backward onto the ground.

He turned his head, a stubborn look in his eyes, convinced that Lily couldn’t be dead.

Mark crossed his arms, his face a mask of cold sarcasm, as if our daughter’s life or death had nothing to do with him.

Cody was still grinning at me, a defiant look on his face.

He was doing it on purpose, trying to provoke me into attacking him.

He mouthed the words silently to me: “You’ll never find her.”

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. The rage I’d been suppressing finally boiled over.

I tried to lunge at Cody, to kill him, but the neighbors held me back.

An older woman grabbed my arm and spoke gently. “Honey, listen to me. Call the police first. If you do something now, you’ll be the one in trouble, and there will be no one left to get justice for your daughter!”

My frantic heart started to calm down.

I couldn’t get into trouble.

I had to find my daughter’s body.

I had to see this evil mother and son get thrown in jail.

And I had to watch Mark’s life fall apart as he paid for what he’d done.

Mark wouldn’t stop pulling at me. “Sarah, stop this madness! It’s so embarrassing! How am I supposed to face anyone after this? The esteemed professor whose daughter is an idiot and whose wife is a lunatic?”

I was seething, but Mark kept going. “Just look at you! What did I ever see in you? If you hadn’t spoiled her so much, she wouldn’t have turned into such a spoiled, lying brat. Running off without telling anyone, no manners at all! When it comes to not worrying her parents, she’s nothing compared to Cody!”

I slapped him. Hard. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head.

Then I pulled the divorce papers out of my purse and threw them in his face. “Don’t you dare say Lily’s name! You don’t have the right! Sign these. I never want to have anything to do with you ever again!”

I ignored Mark and went back to digging in the soil with my bare hands.

Through Mark’s shouting and the crowd’s murmuring, my body suddenly froze.

My brain shut down.

The world went silent, replaced by a roaring in my ears.

Sticking out of the dirt was a small, white hand.

And clutched tightly in it was a little kid’s GPS watch.