He Found His Daughter Behind a Dumpster

Chapter 1 - The Girl Behind The Dumpster

The first thing Daniel Reeves saw was a woman shielding his daughter with her own body.

“Sophie.”

The woman tightened her arms around the child.

“Please, don’t hurt her. I just found her in the trash.”

Daniel immediately lowered himself.

“That’s my daughter.”

The woman stared at him.

Sophie heard his voice.

Slowly, she lifted her tear-streaked face from the woman’s shoulder.

“Daddy?”

Daniel nearly collapsed.

He reached for her hand.

Sophie extended one small hand from beneath the blanket and let him hold it.

“I’m taking you home.”

For a second, relief appeared in her face.

Then it vanished.

She ripped her hand away.

“No!”

She buried herself against the stranger again.

“She’ll put me here again.”

Daniel’s outstretched hand froze.

“Who?”

Sophie looked at him as if saying the answer might make something terrible happen.

Then she whispered:

“You told me to call her Mommy.”

Daniel’s face went cold.

His wife.

Rachel.

The woman he had married two years earlier.

The woman who had called him sobbing that morning, saying Sophie had disappeared while she was helping her get dressed for school.

Daniel slowly stood.

He did not reach for Sophie again.

Instead, he looked at the woman holding her.

“What’s your name?”

“Maria Collins.”

“Maria... please don’t let go of her yet.”

Maria nodded.

Daniel took out his phone.

Then Sophie grabbed his sleeve.

“Daddy.”

He looked down.

Her voice was barely audible.

“She said if I told you, you’d disappear too.”

Daniel stopped dialing.

And suddenly finding his daughter was no longer the end of the nightmare.

It was the beginning.