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Matthew is young, but he knows how to use a phone, and he loves his grandma very much. He always answered as soon as he saw a message from me. I started calling Daniel’s friends and co-workers.
They were all surprised, their voices hesitant. “I haven’t seen Daniel all week,” a coworker told me. “I thought he was on vacation.”
Daniel told me he was swamped with work.”
No one knew anything more. The more I asked, the more I felt like I was lost in a void with no answers. Daniel is not one to disappear without notice.
He’s a dedicated father, a caring son. Something had to have happened. On the 10th day, I couldn’t stand the waiting any longer.
I looked up the neighbors who lived near Daniel’s house, calling everyone I had a number for. They sighed on the other end of the line, their voices full of pity. An elderly woman who lives across the street from Daniel’s house told me that last week, on the night of the storm, she saw a light in Daniel’s house suddenly turn on and then off.
“I thought the boy just turned on the light to go to bed,” she said, but her voice trembled as if she also felt something was wrong. Her words stabbed my heart like a knife. The night of the storm.
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