January 21^st, 2014. 10:34am.

Katy sat on the bench, her back aching from carrying Tally all the way to the park. She sat the cooler down next to her feet, her purse next to it, and watched Tally as she ran up to the play structure. It was chilly for Arizona, so Katy had dressed her in a loud red jacket. Something easy to see from far away. She wouldn’t need it in a few hours when the chill was gone, but for now it kept her warm.

Tally was four, and time had passed so fast. Tally looked just like her, too. The same brown hair, same light ringlets. Same blue eyes. The slightly too-big nose, but a warm expression that brightened even the darkest of corners. Katy found her heart swelling every time she looked at her daughter, overwhelmed by the protective instincts that swamped her.

No one had prepared her for motherhood, not even her own mother. Then again, her Mom and Dad had abandoned her when she had decided she was going to keep her daughter. So much for Catholics sticking with family. She took a deep breath and consciously unclenched her hands; her nails had been digging into the meat of her palms. It had been four years. She had bigger priorities now.

Katy leaned back against the wood of the bench, watching Tally as she headed up the stairs to the top of the slide. It was chilly for January, something that always amused her. She had lived in Oregon until she was nine, and in January, people would be in shorts with highs in the 60s. Here all the natives were bundled up.

The playground was covered by a large awning, something standard for Arizona where the summers could easily hit 115 degrees. There was nothing fun about burning yourself when attempting to play. Swings were off to the side, slides spiraling out of the structure itself at random intervals. For a while, Katy lost herself in watching her daughter. The joy, the laughter - everything that made Katy’s heart swell with pride.

She glanced at her watch. It was just after noon. Lunch time. She’d probably need the jacket off, too. Katy looked up, searching for the red jacket. Tally was standing at the top of the slide, her eyes wide and her brown hair sticking out from underneath the woolen cap.

She glanced down at her picnic bag, reaching down to pull out the sandwiches she had prepared. Meat and cheese for herself, peanut butter and light on the jelly for Tally. Plus carrots and dip. Anything and everything she could use to tempt her picky eater.

“Do you have a Band-Aid?” Another woman caught her attention. The mom was flushed, her hair tossed up in a messy bun, and she was dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie. There was a two-year-old on her hip, whose eyes were red from crying and who looked seconds from bursting into further tears. Katy more than sympathized. It was only in the last year or so that she’d managed to leave the house in something other than sweats.

She bent down, digging through her purse. “Is Hello Kitty okay?”

The mom laughed in relief, taking it and showing the little girl in her arms. “It’s her favorite. Thank you.”

Katy smiled at her. “No problem.” She glanced up, searching for the red jacket and finding Tally near the monkey bars this time. Part of Katy wanted to rush over there and catch her, make sure she wasn’t doing anything dangerous. But Tally was old enough that she’d complain, hands on her hips as she shot Katy the glare about how she was a big girl now. She was getting big. Katy didn’t want to think about it. Soon she’d be starting kindergarten.

She pulled out the last of their lunch, placing it on a cloth napkin on the bench she had been sitting on. The sky was bright and blue, sun beaming down on them and warming the cold weather. A glance up at her told her that Tally had lost the wool hat. Katy sighed. It was the third one that month.

“Tally!” Katy called, standing and turning towards the play structure. She wasn’t that far away, maybe fifteen feet, but it was far enough that Tally was going to practice her selective listening skills. Katy sighed in exasperation, her hands on her hips. “Tally, come here!”

The red jacket kept going, heading up towards the slide again. Glancing back at her purse and their lunch, Katy headed towards the playground, watching Tally as she slid down the spiral slide, the exit pointing away from where Katy was.

“C’mere, you goofball.” Katy’s words were affectionate as she rounded the corner, heading to the exit of the slide. She grabbed Tally’s hand, only to stare in surprise as Tally yanked it out of her grasp.

Then it hit her. The eyes looking back at her weren’t Tally’s. It was the same jacket, the same color hair. But it wasn’t her daughter.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Katy stood straighter, stepping back a few feet and scanning the rest of the playground. No sign of another red jacket. Or of the pink shirt Tally had worn that morning, or the woolen hat.

“Did someone give you that jacket?” Katy turned to the little girl, aware that her voice was probably a bit too frantic. The child squirmed out of her grasp and ran away, leaving Katy standing there, in shock, by the slide. People were probably staring at her, but she didn’t care.

“Tally!” Katy headed away from the playground, her eyes searching the nearby area. There was no fence, not a ton of foliage, so there wasn’t anywhere she could have hidden without being seen, at least outside of the play structure. Right? She had to be somewhere, playing a game of hide and seek.

“Are you okay?” A mom pushing a stroller came up to her, concern in her evergreen eyes.

“I can’t find my daughter.” The words caught in Katy’s throat. “Her name is Tally. She’s four, brown hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a red jacket and a pink shirt under it.”

“I’ll help you look.” The mom nodded, then pushed her stroller off in the opposite direction of Katy. Katy could hear her calling out to others, probably mobilizing the parents of the playground. Katy could barely hear the words, much less understand them.

It was like the world was spinning in circles, like a camera in a movie that was circling its point of view. There was no glimpse of red. There was nothing. “Tally!”

“I called 911.” It was the mom she had given the Hello Kitty Band-Aid to earlier, her two-year-old still fixed against her hip.

“Thanks,” Katy said, trying not to sound ungrateful. Not that she was, but it didn’t seem real. She didn’t need 911, because her daughter wasn’t missing. Surely Tally had just wandered off somewhere, and she would soon pop out and cry ‘surprise!’, waiting to see the happiness on her mom’s face.

But there was no surprise. Instead the police came, and Katy was relegated to answering questions instead of searching for her child. Even as the police talked to her, and she talked back, all she could focus on was the mantra in her head, the voice that was silently chanting ‘she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone.’

They had to find her.

They had to.