It started like any other morning — a quiet kitchen, the smell of toast, and my six-year-old daughter humming softly as she drew in her sketchbook

“The stain isn’t blood,” he explained. “It’s… cat feces. Animal, not human.”

For a heartbeat, I just stared. Then the absurdity hit me all at once. Daisy — our mischievous cat who loved sleeping on Emily’s things — must have done it.

But still, there was the question of Emily’s pain. “What about what she said? That it hurt to sit?”

The detective nodded. “We had a child psychologist talk to her. Turns out she fell off the monkey bars last week. She didn’t want to tell anyone because she thought she’d be punished for breaking playground rules.”