My Little Girl

Chapter 3: Missing

“Thanks Helen we all appreciate it can you tell everyone that,” Michael chocked before shutting the door. “Half the street are out looking for Rosie.” Michael tells me, pulling me closer and wrapping his arms around me. We just stand the rest of the world is oblivious to us. Our arms wrapped around each other, clinging on to each other as if we they were our security blanket. We’re scared, scared for our daughter’s safety. We only pull away when we hear a loud knock on the door.

“Hello Mr and Mrs Smith, I’m DI Edwards, but you can call me Maria, May I come in?” a tall slim woman asks us. We immediately invite her and the other woman stood behind her in, they take a seat on the sofa opposite us. “Now I need you to start from the beginning, you put Rosie to bed then what?”

“I went into my room for a lie down and erm I could hear Freya wasn’t settling from over the monitor. Then I went err I went and got her to get a bottle of milk.”  I stutter struggling to form a simple sentence. “But we had no milk so I went to borrow some from Helen, my neighbour and that’s erm that’s-“

“That’s when you realised that Rosie was missing,” I nod struggling to actually say my daughters missing. I notice Maria scrawling down on her note pad. “You’re doing very well Mrs Smith can you tell me who Freya is?”

“Freya’s our other daughter,” Michael replies indicating to the sleeping toddler in the pram.

“You say Freya wouldn’t settle Mrs Smith,” Maria asks me.

“Yeah, that’s why I brought her down here so she wouldn’t wake Rosie up. Is that important?”

“Well if Rosie heard Freya crying she have came looking for you, was the door unlocked?”

“Yes I hadn’t locked it because I was only nipping next door for milk. But it could mean that Rosie’s just lost.”

Well that’s what where going to look into, but we need a recent picture of Rosie to show people who there looking for?”

I pick up my phone and start scrolling through the gallery, trying to find the perfect picture of Rosie. I finally pick one taken not so long ago. Rosie is dressed up in a pink leotard with a pink skirt. I remember I snapped it after a dance class when she had been told she was going to be in the dance show. I took it so I could post it on Facebook to show everyone how well my little girl was. I remember feeling so proud looking at all the comments people left. ‘Tell my Rosie congrats an give her lots of kisses xxx’. ‘Too cute, she looks just like u :)’. ‘Awww Rosie’s getting so big n gawjus :) xx’. I look into her big blue beautiful eyes, she has a wide genuine smile full of happiness, and her blonde locks are flowing free. “This was taken just last week” I tell Maria handing her the phone.

“You have a beautiful daughter but were going to need to keep hold of your phone only so we can copy the photo on to posters after that you can have it straight back.”

“I am going to do all I can to help bring Rosie back home as soon as possible. What were going to do is organise your neighbours into search parties with the help of police. If by the morning Rosie has still not shown up I’m afraid we are going to treat it as an abduction.” The word abduction sends shivers down my spine, someone right now could have my little girl. Rosie could be scared with only a stranger to comfort her. “By that time the best thing to do is to try and get help off the media, this is what Claire’s for,” Maria tells us pointing to the woman at her left.

“I’m Claire a Family Liaison Officer and I will be back in the morning, unfortunately Maria has to coordinate the search for your daughter and the best place to do that is the station. I will be here to help you.”

I just get up and look out at the window, I can see people out walking about a lot more than would normally be out, most are probably searching for Rosie. Each house in our small cul-de-sac has got at least one light on. Some of our neighbours are chatting wondering what is going on. Most people here have one question echoing around in their heads. Where is Rosie?

Where is my Rosie? Is she scared and alone? Trapped and cold somewhere? Terrified with a stranger? Is she crying out for help? Is she calling for her mummy?