My only instinct was to try and protect
my daughter…
…but first, I had to find her. The thought of seeing her again after all of
these years…after all that had happened was almost too much for me. I would be forced to face up to the biggest
mistake I’d ever made.
But, I had to fight back my
emotions. No matter what I had done in
the past, my job was now to keep her safe.
I had to get to her before Carmina
decided to.
I could hear Carmina rummaging around
downstairs. I dressed quickly and went
down to confront her.
“Where is she?” I snarled as soon as I was face to face with
her.
“Who?”
She asked innocently in the same tone that she was accustomed to fooling
everyone else with.
“My
daughter!” I yelled in the opposite
tone.
“Um…but, I’m your only daughter,” Carmina said as if speaking to someone who
had lost their mind.
I marched up to her at a pace that
indicated that I wasn’t in the mood to play with her. She stared at me showing that she wasn’t the
least bit intimidated.
That only made me angrier. “If we’re going to play this game, you need
to at least give me a shot at winning!”
I demanded.
Carmina smiled slightly as if I had said
the most asinine thing she’d ever heard.
Her tone matched her expression, “It was game
over 20
years ago. We’re just going through the
motions now.”
“Carmina…I swear to God, if you hurt
her!”
Carmina
stepped back as if she was afraid of me…which I knew she wasn’t.
“I’m hurt mother… how could you threaten
to hurt me…your only daughter?”
“Carmina…your manipulation tactics don’t
work on me anymore. I need to know where
my daughter is!” My patience was gone and Carmina knew it.
Still, she wasn’t about to give in, “Oh… it still works, or we wouldn’t be here
having this conversation.”
Carmina continued, “This is a small
town. If you want to know where your daughter is…find
her yourself.”
Carmina walked passed me and headed up
the stairs. I should have known she
wasn’t going to make the whole situation easy on me. But she was right, Midnight Hollow was a
small town so locating my daughter shouldn’t be too hard.
I just wondered how long I had before
Carmina went after her.
I hurried over to the computer. Since I knew my daughter’s name, I figured
that all I had to do was search an online directory for every Christina in
town.
When I actually got online, I realized
that Christina was a fairly common name and not everyone was listed by their
actual name. Some were listed by just
their initials. I didn’t know my own
daughter’s last name, so I printed out the list of addresses for every
Christina or person with a C in their initials that lived in town.
I set out visiting every address that I
had written down.
I knocked on door after door. Some people weren’t home, so I made a mental
note to try those houses again later.
Some locations were obviously wrong. My heart sank each time a person came to the
door that wasn’t my daughter.
I knew that time was winding down.
Eventually, I began to run out of
addresses to try. I realized too late
that not everybody in town would be listed in a directory. Some people opted
out of such public listings.
I was almost ready to give up. Midnight Hollow wasn’t very big, but it was
too big for a door to door search; that would take months.
It was getting late. I was hot and tired and ready to give up.
But, I decided to try one last house
before ending my search for the night and trying again the next day.
I rang that one last doorbell, expecting
any face, except the one that I actually saw.
The woman who answered the door was very
pretty, with chocolate brown skin, shoulder length hair and an eye patch over
her right eye.
I was staring at my biggest regret. It was her…
I had found my daughter. My adult daughter that I made the mistake of
abandoning in the hospital 20 years ago.
Labels: I Stole Evil
