The Girl on the News
Published by Bookouture,
29 January 2024.
My heart pounds as
I take in the headline: ‘Missing girl believed kidnapped’. Underneath is a
photo of my beautiful daughter Mia, her gap-toothed grin unmistakable. But Mia
is safe beside me, snuggled up on the sofa. Who has taken a photo of her, and
put it on the news? And what message are they trying to send me…?
I run to the window of our little house – the cosy, homely place my husband
Mark and I bought so Mia could have everything I didn’t as a child – and pull
the curtains tightly shut, hiding us from sight as terror courses through my
body. Why would someone pretend my daughter has been taken?
Unless it’s not a threat, but a warning. A hint of what might be to come…
Memories flash through my mind of news reports from twenty years ago: when my
own name was in the headlines. The accusation of murder. The loss of my best
friend. I was just a child, but that didn’t save me… is someone from my
dark past sending me a message?
Then my worst nightmares come true. Mia is taken, snatched from the playground,
and my world collapses.
I will do anything to get her back. Because I’m convinced now that
this has something to do with what happened all those years ago. But the person
who has my daughter? They might have known me back then, but they don’t know
who I am now. Or what I’m willing to do to get Mia home safe…
Elisabeth Carpenter lives in Preston with her family. She completed a BA
in English Literature and Language with the Open University in 2008. Elisabeth
was awarded a Northern Writers’ New Fiction award and was longlisted for Yeovil
Literary Prize (2015 and 2016) and the MsLexia Women’s Novel award (2015). She
loves living in the north of England and sets most of her stories in the area,
including the novel she is writing at the moment. She currently works as a bookkeeper.
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