......... Allira ......... “Mom?” I call out after entering the house, and Mom comes running down the stairs, looking distraught. “What happened?” I ask, and she says she found photos of Mati like the ones I saw but worse, and now she can’t get through to dad’s phone. She also says she saw a card demanding money from my father and that she has called all the places she believes he could be, but no one has seen him. The police can’t do anything until he has been missing for at least twenty-four hours, and it's bloody frustrating. She didn’t ask me to come, but after she called me and told me she’s worried and can’t get through to him, I dropped everything and came. We hug each other, both of us stressed, and I ask her to show me the photos. She warns me they look bad, but I tell her I w

