The Searching®

The Searching: Prologue

Just waking, I lay in the middle of a forest ground with my body experiencing fatigue as I look into the sky, wondering "why should I do this anymore?" I've done everything I could, and my daughter and family would be proud of what I've done to help. Days went by when we kept searching for my kidnapped daughter, and It was only a matter of time when I knew I may have to give up trying. My heart.. my soul, and my mind was completely empty without even the slightest memory or words from my daughter ever speaking to me again, and I wasted years searching for the only answer I knew about her disappearance, it was that I should've told her how much I loved her before it happend.

I knew that raising a family wouldn't be easy.. And being a single father for four years took me a while to adapt into. My wife passed away since then, and we all took it hard since then, and continued to as we got older. My oldest son, Nathaniel, would work full time shift from 8 to 4pm, and one afternoon he told me he couldn't handle the stress with all of the robberies that would take place at the bank, So he quit his job only 2 months in never pursuing another job since. By the time he got his first job, was when I had just retired, so he wanted to help the family out.

I never told him, but he knew that we were in finiancial trouble. I started looking for a new home for our family by then and weeks went by and not one house was even close within our budget. One afternoon while my children were in school I drove off into the country roads observing what I may find. Then I found this old barn in very good condition that I thought would have worked out. A week later after talking with my family, we all decided that we needed a change and that we needed to move. My daughter, Alison never said a word about the move, but she knew it was time to move on. She had a bookbag full of books and personal items, a flower vinyl bookcase of clothes, and a smile that would fade away as she packed everything up.

She got into the car as she handed me her bags. It was hard to see her face as she just kept her head down, but I knew she was had tears of regret leaving the only memory of her mother. She was only 9 years old when my wife Lucy passed away, and now has been 5 years since her death. I told everyone to pack everything up, as I was going to take one last look around the house. I just stood there with my back up against the trunk of the car, thinking of all of the wonderful memories I had with my wife there.

"We had a good run Lucy.. Haha.. But we're not leaving you just yet", I said to myself as my tears fell onto my Jacket.

I knocked on the back window of the truck telling everone to come out and take one last tour in the house. Nathan walked out soflty as he headed towards the front door of the house, and opened it.

I never really talked about Lucy a whole lot since her death, knowing that I would just make my children cry, but I told them both the history and time my wife and I had there together. It had been at least a few months since I've mentioned anything about her making it hard for me to speak clearly without choking up.

"Your mother and I bought this house when we were 22, and then we had Nathan about 2 years later", I told them.

"Your mother worked for the F.B.I. that's why she couldn't always tell us about her work. She was always discreet when it came to talking about her assignments." I headed towards the fire place in the family room openeing the gate.

"Dad, what are you doing?", Alison told me in a stern tone.

"Showing you what I should've shown you two a long time ago..".

I took out a red book that was covered in dust hidden from behind another cockpit in the back. It was getting old enough that the pages started to become crisp and hard, as I flipped throughout the pages with my kids.

"Wow.... She was.. a poet?", asked Alison.

I replied, "Yeah just like you! She loved writing, but always discreet about it. She told me to give this to you at the right time. I think You deserve to now possess it. "

Knowing it was the right thing to do, I felt as if I shouldn't have given it to her just yet, but my wife told me to give it to her when I felt it was time. She'd spent hours writing in that book when she'd come home from work, and I never bothered or rarely even spoke about it with her, but I'd know that she had a purpose for whatever she was writting about. We walked into my wife's office where would work, as everything was already gone and packed. I had looked into the closest only seeing crayon scribbles on the wall that my kid's so called "masterpiece" would draw, as my wife would Call it. I reached out to the rod where we would hang out clothes, and pushed it foward, causing a loud click that dropped another book from underneath the shelf.

"My God, Dad how much more stuff had she hid from us??" Nathaniel said now starting to make a disgusted face.

"This Is all she had. This was the last one.. Why don't you open the book, Nathan. She had something for all three of us. "

"OK. But-... My gosh.. It's huge book! You really must've not bothered her when she wrote, Dad" he rejoiced as his eyes turned into an ocean of tide waves, quietly hitting shore.

Ten minutes had passed, and we left the house, got into the car, and waved our last goodbye to our house before we drove out into the driveway. The kids stayed quite as I would briefly look into the rear view mirror, and saw that they were crying. The drive was about twenty-five minutes by the time we arrived at the new house. It was beautiful. Peaceful, and a relaxing environment. The kids jumped out from the truck and made their way to the backyard, as I called the landlord.

"Hey guys, don't go too far!" I had to yell at them because they were already far from me. Then finally someone answered.

"Yes, hello?? " said a man who sounded like he just saw a ghost.

"Yeah, HI. I'm calling to verify that the residence on 235 Palm Street Road, is for a fact ready for us to enter?" I tried my best to ask without sounding too demanding as I am most of the time.

About two seconds later, the phone had disconnected from the signal. "God, dangit. That's one thing I'm gonna miss.. Good signal."

Immediately jolting up in shock, I hear a loud thump with a scream incorporated that sounded like a dying dolphin. I run back to the back yard where I knew my kids were at, and saw the swingset tilted down onto the ground as Nathan is holding Alison in his arms. All they do is laugh. I just had hoped that this house would be the best choice for us to make.. At least for that moment.