Lilian was not ready to stop her search, she did everything in her power to find Mia but she just couldn’t. She finally gave in and decided to report the issue to the police.
“And how long has she been missing?” A police officer began to question Lilian who was seated in his office to file a missing child case.
“I just noticed her disappearance this afternoon” Lilian was lying.
“And what did you do about it?” The officer began to question Lilian because he doubted her words. Lilian looked so terrified it was easy for anyone to tell that she was lying and she was terrible at it.
“I searched for her in the house and neighborhood. I thought she just went out to play but now I’m thinking it was more than that. Please officer, you have to help me find my niece, she is all I have left of my sister” Lilian burst into fake tears as a way of hiding her fear and also confusing the officer. Her tricked finally worked.
He lowered his eyebrows and looked at her then ordered his fellow officers to begin the search immediately.
There was really no need to wait 24 hours as she was just a child.
The search for Mia wasn’t an easy one at all, there were many posters and flyers all printed out. As a matter of fact TV channels and radio stations covered the news. Someone could be watching their favorite TV series and they would just interrupt it at some point to inform the public that Mia was missing. The search went on for a full month and still there had been no signs whatsoever of Mia. Everyone was beginning to give up and she was almost declared dead.
“No, please don’t hurt me. Please let me go” Lilian could be heard screaming for help in her deep sleep. The workers in her house had become used to this ever since Mia’s disappearance.
“Please I am innocent, please spare my life” Lilian suddenly jerked off from her sleep only to be surrounded by 3 of her maids.
She was panting and breathing so heavily, not just that but she was sweating as well despite the fact that the air conditioner and ceiling fan were on.
She was struggling to catch her breath as she placed her palm on her chest as if she was just hit hard on the chest.
“Here you go ma’am, have some water” a maid poured a glass of water from the jug that was on the stool close to her bed.
“Thank you” Lilian began to gulp down the entire glass of water as if she had never tasted water before.
It was yet again another nightmare, ever since Mia left Lilian had known no peace. It was either she dreamy of those masked men coming to attack her or she dreamt that Arthur and Catherine were beating the hell out of her.
“Tell me where you have kept Mia now unless I will kill you. Tell me now?!” A masked man kept on taunting Lilian while he pointed a gun at her threatening to shoot. Lilian was very scared and confused, she couldn’t even utter a word and slowly she made backward steps away from this man.
Suddenly Lilian was no longer in the same room with this man, she found herself in another room and felt relief until she saw Arthur and Catherine slowly making their way towards her.
“You are responsible for my daughter’s disappearance, despite taking all of my money you still couldn’t take care of her. Now I will teach you a lesson so you can feel my pain as well” Catherine pushed Lilian to the floor and was whipping her mercilessly.
“That is not enough, you have to hit her some more. We need to teach her a lesson she won’t easily forget. Give her a scar” Arthur gave her a blow and Catherine didn’t wait for Lilian to recover before she began to hit her in the stomach.
“Mummy please punish her some more” crying Mia was at a spot staring at Lilian and giving her funny faces while she hugged a little teddy bear. She looked so innocent.
“Please Mia, please help me to beg your parents to just pity me. Tell them I didn’t do anything to you, tell them I am innocent. Please end my misery I beg of you” Lilian slowly crawled towards where Mia sat but that didn’t stop Arthur and Catherine from continuing their molestation, the blows came one after the other and was extremely painful.
Lilian suddenly woke up again from her second and third nightmare in one night. Lilian just couldn’t know how much of this she could take. Maybe it was just Lilians’s conscience that wouldn’t let her go to sleep at night.
She approached the breakfast table and she overheard one of the maids whisper.
“Who knows if she killed the innocent child. She never really liked her from the beginning when she first stepped foot in this house”.
Lilian, whose eyes were already red and shrinking due to the lack of sleep, removed the table cloth, making all the dishes on the table fall to the ground. She flipped the table over and turned to face the maid that made the comment.
“I didn’t kill her. You were here when she went missing so why are you accusing me of such?. How could you even say that to me? I didn’t kill her” she yelled and supported her head with her two hands, she broke down in tears and at the same time she was slowly losing her mind.
“Why would your own maid even say such a thing in the first place?” A police officer unexpectedly walked into the house over hearing the entire conversation.
Everyone looked stunned but Lilian just couldn’t handle the whole drama as she passed out and fell to the floor. The officer immediately picked her up in his hands and drove her to the hospital.
At the hospital
“Is she going to be fine?” The officer approached the male doctor that had just attended to Lilian.
“Eventually” the doctor sounded unsure of what he was saying but the officer chose to see the positive side of things.
“Then why did she pass out?” The officer was very inquisitive and at the same time very suspicious of Lilian.
“From what I have observed she hasn’t been eating and sleeping well so that might be the reason but we will still have to run several tests. But for now I suggest that we will have to induce her into a coma, she doesn’t really seem stable” the doctor was explaining before he was interrupted by the officer.
“So you are putting her in a coma just because she hasn’t been eating and sleeping” the officer was more than confused at this point. He was startled.
“Not really. There seems to be a drug overdose, she has been taking too many sleeping pills and we are scared it might lead to some serious brain damage if we don’t put her in the coma immediately” the doctor tried his best to clarify things.
“Okay but can I ask her a few questions before you do?” The officer somehow had his hopes up.
“No you cannot” the doctor immediately crushed any hope the officer had left and went on to continue his work.
Meanwhile at Lilians’s house
Other police officers decided to carry out their own investigations after they had gotten the report.
“Who exactly said that to her?” one of the five officers spoke as the maids, drivers and other workers all gathered in the sitting room.
No one wanted to admit it, everyone was too scared as they feared the outcome.
“We are begging you all to cooperate with us to avoid any further problems. Refusal of any of you would be very detrimental for the rest so I am going to ask again. Who accused miss Lilian of murdering Mia ?” he spoke up again this time sounding more demanding and threatening.
“I did” one of the maids trembled as she finally confessed.
“And why would you do that?” Another officer inquired while the rest of them immediately began to jot down everything she was saying.
“Well considering the various nightmares Miss Lilian has been having and also the fact that she didn’t like Mia while she was staying here. I just thought..” She took a pause to gather more strength and she took a deep breath.
” I thought that she wanted to get rid of her,” she concluded.
“What made you think she didn’t like Mia? I mean what brought that idea to you?” The questions continued.
“She never played with her or loved her like a child. Constantly she would scold her and beat her” another maid gathered the courage to speak out.
“More like abuse?” An office raised a brow.
“More than abuse” many of the workers chorused at the same time.
At this point the officers were more than convinced that handing Mia over to Lilian as a guardian was a very big mistake the court made. They started to take the statements of each and every worker and they all pointed out one thing which was the fact that Lilian never cared about Mia at all. It was very clear that all she wanted from Mia was the money that she would inherit from Mia’s parents.
The workers who gave in their statements were already prepared to lose their jobs, their conscience could no longer handle the guilt and pain. Neither of them enjoyed working for Lilian anyway so to them they had nothing to lose. Many of them had not been paid their salaries to sum up the whole issue, they were completely fed up.
Everything seemed to have come to an end, the investigation that is but they could still not prove that Lilian was responsible for Mia’s death. Mia’s death hadn’t even been an established fact yet so it could just be the random thoughts of Lillian’s workers. The only person in the best position to answer these questions was Lilian herself.