Jessica stared at him.

"What?"

David looked directly into her eyes.

"The three men in those photographs weren't the only ones who disappeared."

He paused.

"One of them was your father."

Jessica's face went completely still.

And for the first time that night, the woman who had demanded to search David's trash bag had no idea what to say.

Mình sẽ mở rộng thành truyện dài khoảng 20.000 từ, chia thành nhiều phần để giữ nhịp truyện, phát triển nhân vật và các cú twist hợp lý. Tiếp tục trực tiếp từ đoạn kết Part 1, không kể lại phần mở đầu.

THE POLICEWOMAN DEMANDED TO SEE HIS TRASH BAG… THEN SHE DISCOVERED WHO HE REALLY WAS

An American crime thriller — Police corruption, missing persons, hidden identities, betrayal, and a shocking family secret.

PART 2 — THE FATHER WHO NEVER CAME HOME

Jessica Miller couldn't move.

The photograph was still in David's hand.

Her father's name had not been mentioned in years. Not by her colleagues. Not by her mother. Not even by the relatives who used to visit their house every Thanksgiving.

For most of her childhood, she had believed he had abandoned them.

Her mother had told her that he left one evening and never returned. There had been no explanation, no goodbye, and no funeral.

When Jessica was sixteen, she had finally stopped asking questions.

Now a stranger in a faded gray sleeveless shirt was standing in front of her, claiming that her father had been one of three men who disappeared eleven years earlier.

She stared at David.

"Say that again."

David didn't immediately respond.

"Your father was connected to the Northbridge case."

"That's not what I asked."

Jessica stepped closer.

"You said my father disappeared."

"Yes."

"What's his name?"

David looked at the photograph.

"Michael Miller."

Jessica's face drained of color.

Her father had been a police officer.

He had worked in Baltimore for almost twenty years before supposedly leaving the department under mysterious circumstances.

She had an old photograph of him in her bedroom.

A tall man with dark hair, a broad smile, and a police badge pinned to his uniform.

She remembered how he used to lift her onto his shoulders whenever she was too tired to walk.

She remembered his voice.

She remembered the smell of his aftershave.

And she remembered the night he disappeared.

He had promised to attend her school graduation.

He never came.

Jessica swallowed.

"How do you know my father's name?"

David carefully placed the photograph on the hood of the patrol car.

"Because I investigated his disappearance."

"You're lying."

"I wish I were."

"Why would my father be involved in some investigation?"