Chapter Four:The Disappearance
1705 Words
Maya’s POV
I knew something was wrong the moment the guard looked at me.
I couldn’t explain the feeling.
Nothing had happened yet.
The building looked exactly the way it always did.
Same entrance.
Same security desk.
Same cold walls.
Same people moving around with tired expressions.
But something felt different.
Maybe it was the way the guard stared at me.
Maybe it was the way his fingers stopped moving when I said my father’s name.
Or maybe some part of me already knew.
Something had changed.
I just didn’t know what.
I had barely stepped through the entrance before he asked, “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see my father.”
He glanced at the clock.
“Name?”
“Alan Hayes.”
His fingers paused over the keyboard.
Then he looked at me.
“Alan who?”
I frowned.
“Hayes. Alan Hayes.”
He typed again.
Nothing.
He tried another search.
Still nothing.
“He should be on the visitation list,” I said.
The guard leaned closer to the screen.
“I don’t see him.”
I laughed nervously.
“You probably typed it wrong.”
“I didn’t.”
“Please check again.”
He did.
Then he shook his head.
“There’s no Alan Hayes.”
My smile disappeared.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s no inmate by that name.”
I stared at him.
“That’s not possible.”
He looked at me with an expression that made my stomach twist.
“Ma’am, are you sure this is the right facility?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve visited here before?”
“Every week.”
I had made that trip so many times that I knew the process by heart.
Sign in.
Show my identification.
Wait.
Go through security.
Sit in the visitation room.
Wait for Dad.
It had become routine.
Not an easy routine.
But a familiar one.
Every visit, I counted the minutes until I saw him.
Every visit, I tried to pretend that things were normal.
That he was still my father.
That prison was only a temporary part of his life.
That one day, I would walk into this building and walk out with him.
I had never imagined walking in and discovering that he had simply disappeared.
He looked back at the computer.
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
His eyebrows pulled together.
“Three weeks?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet.
I stepped closer to the desk.
“Maybe he’s been transferred.”
“If he was transferred, there would still be a record.”
“Then maybe your system is down.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then check again.”
He sighed and searched one more time.
Nothing.
I felt my heartbeat getting louder.
“My father is here.”
The guard shook his head.
“Not according to our records.”
I pulled out my phone.
“I have his information.”
I opened the photo I had taken of his inmate details months ago.
I pushed the phone toward him.
“Look.”
He stared at the screen.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
I swallowed.
“Just tell me where he is.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t find him.”
I stared at him.
The words didn’t make sense.
“I visited him three days ago.”
I could still remember that visit clearly.
The same room.
The same table.
The same chair across from mine.
Dad had looked tired.
More tired than usual.
I had asked him if he was okay.
He had smiled.
That smile had bothered me then, but I hadn’t understood why.
He had spent most of the visit asking questions about me.
School.
Mum.
Home.
Things he normally talked about without hesitation.
Now, standing in front of two officers who insisted he didn’t exist, I kept thinking about how strange that conversation had been.
Maybe he had known something.
Maybe he had been trying to prepare me.
I just hadn’t realized it.
The guard didn’t answer.
“I sat right there.”
I pointed toward the visitation area.
“He was sitting across from me.”
Silence.
“He talked to me.”
Still nothing.
“He asked about my mother.”
My voice started shaking.
“He told me he loved me.”
The guard glanced toward another officer.
That made something inside me snap.
“What’s happening?”
“Ma’am”
“No.”
I stepped back.
“No, you’re going to check again.”
“We have.”
“Then get someone else.”
The second officer approached.
“What seems to be the problem?”
The first guard explained.
The second officer looked at me.
“Name?”
“Alan Hayes.”
He typed it into another system.
I watched his face.
Nothing.
Then he shook his head.
“No record.”
I laughed.
It came out wrong.
“No.”
“Ma’am”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“This is a mistake.”
“We understand this is upsetting.”
“You don’t understand.”
I pulled out my phone again.
“I have his picture.”
I scrolled through my gallery.
There he was.
My father.
Older than I remembered him before prison, but still unmistakably himself.
Alan Hayes.
My father.
I showed them.
“This is him.”
The second officer looked at the picture.
“Do you have another form of identification?”
“I have everything.”
I started searching through my bag.
His old documents.
The visitation information.
The papers I’d kept because I was his daughter and despite everything, I had never stopped believing he would eventually come home.
I placed them on the desk.
“Here.”
The officer looked through them.
His expression changed.
Not recognition.
Confusion.
“Where did you get these?”
I stared at him.
The question made no sense.
“From the prison.”
His expression didn’t change.
“When?”
“Over the past few weeks.”
He looked down at the papers again.
I watched his eyes move across the pages.
He wasn’t treating them like fake documents.
He was treating them like something he couldn’t explain.
That scared me more.
If he had simply told me they were fake, I could have argued.
I could have demanded answers.
But he didn’t.
He just kept looking at them.
Like he was trying to understand how they had ended up in my hands.
I stared at him.
“They’re his.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I felt cold.
“I don’t understand.”
He pushed the papers back toward me.
“There is no inmate by this name.”
I looked at the documents.
Then at him.
“Then who have I been visiting?”
The question hung between us.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
I looked from one officer to the other.
Their silence felt worse than an answer.
My mind started searching for possibilities.
Maybe I had been given the wrong inmate number.
Maybe someone had made a mistake.
Maybe Dad had been transferred without telling me.
But none of those explanations made sense.
I had seen him.
I had spoken to him.
I had sat across from him.
I knew his voice.
I knew the way he looked at me.
I knew the small smile he gave whenever he was trying to hide that he was worried.
Unless
I stopped myself.
I didn’t want to finish the thought.
Because the only question left was one I wasn’t ready to ask.
Who was sitting across from me all those times?
Neither officer answered.
My fingers tightened around my phone.
And suddenly, I remembered Dad’s face from three days ago.
You need to forget about me.
Don’t dig into my case.
Promise me.
And then his final words.
You know I will always love you, right, Maya?
My stomach dropped.
I shook my head.
“No.”
The guard looked at me.
“What?”
I backed away from the desk.
“No. I’m going home.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond.
I walked out.
The moment I stepped outside, I stopped.
The air felt different.
Too heavy.
I pulled out my phone and called Mum.
She answered after a few rings.
“Hello?”
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
I swallowed.
“Do you remember Dad?”
Silence.
A strange, uncomfortable silence.
“What kind of question is that?”
“I went to the prison today.”
Her breathing changed.
“And?”
“They said there’s no record of him.”
“What?”
“They said Alan Hayes was never there.”
She didn’t respond.
“Mum?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.”
I stared at the prison building.
“But I was there three days ago.”
My mother’s voice became quieter.
“Maya”
“What?”
“Come home.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Just come home.”
The call ended.
I stood there for another few seconds.
Then I started walking.
I didn’t know what was happening.
I didn’t know who had erased my father’s records.
I didn’t even know whether I was supposed to believe what I’d been told.
But one thing kept repeating in my mind.
My father’s last words.
Forget everything.
I kept walking.
Every step felt heavier than the one before it.
I thought about Dad’s warnings.
The way he had avoided certain questions.
The way he had suddenly become nervous during our last visit.
The way he had looked at me before I left.
At the time, I had thought he was simply tired.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
There had always been pieces of my father’s story that didn’t fit.
Now they were the only things I could think about.
And somewhere between the prison gates and the road home, I realized something terrifying.
Maybe Dad hadn’t disappeared today.
Maybe he had disappeared long before I noticed.
And for the first time
I wondered if he had known this was coming.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD