The Unanswered Call The Ignored Daughter’s Last Words Chapter 06

The Unanswered Call The Ignored Daughter’s Last Words Chapter 06

Officers stepped in and tried to pull Mom and 

Celine away. 

Mom clung to me so tightly that it took several of 

them to finally get her away. 

She fought them, screaming and sobbing, wild. 

with grief. 

They carefully covered my body again. 

The medical examiner said they needed to 

perform an autopsy, but Mom refused. 

At last, Dad put his hand over hers and said 

hoarsely, “Let them do it. We need to know what 

happened if we’re going to make whoever did this. 

pay.” 

Mom froze. 

Then she crumpled to the floor, covered her face, 

and sobbed. 

I hovered nearby, so ashamed I could barely lift my 

head. 

I kept apologizing to everyone who had to deal with all of this because of me. 

“I’m sorry. If I’d known I was going to cause this 

much trouble, I would’ve tried harder to be good.” 

“I’m sorry for making things hard for you.” 

Dad didn’t go home with Mom and Celine. He went 

to the crime scene. 

I followed him back to the house where I had lived 

for more than twenty years. 

The front door stood open behind police tape. 

Dad stepped past the tape and went into the living 

room. 

The lock hung crooked, with a broken fragment of 

the tool still jammed inside the cylinder. 

The cable to the security camera in the corner of 

the living room had been cleanly cut at the base. 

My smartwatch lay crushed on the bedroom floor, 

its screen shattered into a web of cracks. 

Dad crouched and picked it up. 

Martin came over, looking grim. 

“Lieutenant Avery, digital forensics already went through the security system. The cameras were tampered with.” 

“They scoped the house out beforehand. They 

used a signal jammer to kill the live feed, then replaced it with a loop of the empty hallway. What you saw on your phones was prerecorded footage.” 

“From the moment he came in until he left, the cameras never caught him.” 

Dad staggered. 

Celine stood against the doorframe, white as a sheet. 

So when I said someone was knocking, the cameras really had shown nothing. 

I hadn’t been lying. 

Someone had made sure they couldn’t see him. 

Dad stood beside my shattered smartwatch without moving. 

A long time passed before he finally spoke, his 

voice raw. 

“She called three times.” 

“The first time, she said someone was knocking, 

and we called her a liar.” 

“The second time, she said someone had come to 

take her away, and we said she was acting up.” 

“The third…” 

He couldn’t finish. 

Digital forensics recovered the available 

recordings from the house. 

Dad sat alone in the car and watched every one of 

them. 

I floated in the passenger seat beside him. 

When he heard me scream, “Mommy, help!” his 

hand locked around the steering wheel. 

When he heard his own voice say, “She’s probably 

acting out for attention again,” he closed his eyes. 

Tears slipped down the lines of his face. 

When the recordings ended, the car went dead 

silent. 

Dad suddenly slapped himself hard across the face, then did it again and again. 

Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, but he 

didn’t stop. 

I knelt beside him and tugged at his sleeve. 

“Daddy, stop. It’ll hurt your face.” 

My hand passed straight through his arm. 

Then Dad’s phone rang. 

Martin sounded urgent. 

“Lieutenant Avery! We found him–an abandoned 

warehouse outside Yonkers. SWAT is already on 

the way!” 

Dad threw open the car door and ran. 

I ran after him. The wind passed through me, cool 

and faint. 

Outside the warehouse, police lights washed the 

night red and blue. 

Dad had barely opened the car door when a gunshot cracked through the air. 

There was a dull thud, followed by a burst of 

shouting. 

A few minutes later, an officer ran out, barely 

containing his excitement. 

“We got him! He took a round in the leg. He’s not 

going anywhere!” 

When Dad rushed inside, the scarred man was 

face–down on the floor with two officers holding 

him there. 

He lifted his head, saw Dad, and grinned. 

“Grant Avery. Long time no see. Seen your 

daughter’s body yet?” 

Dad lunged forward and kicked him in the face. 

“I’ll kill you!” 

The officers dragged Dad back, but he surged 

forward again and had to be restrained a second 

time. 

The killer spat blood onto the floor and kept 

grinning. 

“You destroyed my Family. I killed your daughter. 

We’re even.” 

“You’ll never have a moment’s peace for the rest of your life.” 

I floated over and reached for Dad’s hand. 

“Daddy, they caught him. It’s okay now. Don’t be 

mad. Being mad is bad for you.” 

Dad couldn’t hear me. 

That night, my ashes were brought home. 

Celine signed a stack of papers with trembling hands. 

Mom held the urn the entire time and refused to 

let go. 

Dad followed behind them, unsteady on his feet, as if he had aged twenty years in a single day.