Chapter 5 - A Ghost from the Daylight
Two days after the incident, Daniel sat on a park bench watching Sophie tentatively push a wooden swing back and forth. She refused to sit on it, preferring to push the empty seat as if testing its strength before trusting it with her weight. As Daniel watched her, his phone vibrated against his thigh. The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number with an area code from rural Wisconsin.
He answered with caution. "Daniel Vance speaking."
A long silence stretched over the receiver before a quiet, breathless woman’s voice broke the static. "Daniel... is it true? Is what’s on the local news true?"
Daniel froze. The cadence, the trembling pitch—it had been four years since he had last heard it. "Elena?"
Elena had been Daniel’s first wife, Sophie’s biological mother. Suffering from severe postpartum depression combined with sudden neurological illness, she had surrendered custody in the midst of a medical breakdown, believing herself unfit and choosing to vanish into a remote rehabilitation community to prevent dragging her child through her agony.
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"I saw the online arrest report about Evelyn," Elena sobbed, her words spilling out in a rush of anguish. "Daniel, please... tell me Sophie is alive. Tell me she is safe. I have been clean, healthy, and working at an outreach center for three years, but I never dared to reach out because your lawyers told me Sophie was happy with her new mother."
Daniel’s hand tightened around the phone. "She is alive, Elena. But she has been through hell."
