Perfectly Imperfect

Mallory

“Julia?” Her voice was sharper than she intended—an edge usually reserved for when homework wasn’t done or curfew ignored. No answer.

Mallory’s bare feet padded quickly across the hallway, scanning for any sign of movement. The other bedroom door was closed—Anna’s. She pushed it wide. Anna was just beginning to stir.

Her chest tightened. “Anna, your sister—did you hear the scream? Where is Julia?”

Now Anna was groggily sitting up on the bed. The seventeen-year-old blinked at her mother in confusion.

“What? Mom, what are you talking about? I didn’t hear anything.”

 “You didn’t?” Mallory’s voice wavered. “There was a scream—Julia’s scream. It came from this end of the house.”
 

Anna frowned, rubbing her eyes. “I was asleep. Maybe she’s in the bathroom?”
“No,” Mallory said, already shaking her head. “The bathroom door’s open. She’s not there.”

Anna swung her legs over the side of the bed, suddenly more alert. “Mom, you’re scaring me. Where is she?”

Mallory didn’t have time to answer Anna. She needed to check the rest of the house, wake Noah, and find her twelve-year-old daughter—the one she had just heard scream. Or at least, she thought she’d heard a scream. As she ran down the hall, her head buzzed.

She was about to start down the stairs when something shifted in her peripheral vision—a quick blur outside the window. Two figures were moving across the front lawn. One small. One larger. The larger one moved with purpose, hand gripping the smaller’s arm.

For a moment, her brain refused to connect the image with reality. It was early, too early for friends or neighbors, and she didn’t recognize the dark coat the man wore. Julia’s pajama set—a blur of faded stripes —flashed against the green of the lawn as they reached the sidewalk.

Mallory’s throat constricted. The world narrowed to the front door, her legs already in motion.

She yanked the front door open so hard it slammed against the wall, the sound ricocheting down the quiet street.

“Julia!” Her voice cracked as it tore out of her, but the pair didn’t turn. The man’s stride lengthened, his grip tightening. Julia’s head jerked back at the sound of her mother’s voice, but the man leaned in, whispering something that made her go still.

Mallory ran barefoot onto the cold concrete steps, the morning air biting at her skin. She darted across the lawn, heart hammering, lungs burning, the wet grass slick under her feet.

“Let her go!”

The man didn’t break stride. He reached the curb and shoved Julia into the back seat of a black sedan idling with the engine running. The driver—a different man—glanced at Mallory just long enough for her to catch the flat, unreadable expression in his eyes before the car door slammed shut.

Mallory lunged for the handle, but the locks clicked down in unison. The sedan roared away, tires spitting gravel.

She chased it into the street, screaming her daughter’s name, until the sound of the engine faded and all that remained was the thin, metallic taste of panic in her mouth. The secluded street in Cape Elizabeth was quiet—dead quiet. No neighbors in sight, just Mallory and her fear.

She needed her phone. She started sprinting. As she ran back across the lawn, she saw Noah and Anna coming toward her, the panic in their eyes mirroring her own.

“Noah, call 911! Someone just took Julia.”
“Took her? What are you talking about?”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit something. Why were they both acting so clueless?

Pushing past them, she ran for the master bedroom where her phone was plugged in on the nightstand.

When the operator finally answered, Mallory could barely get the words out fast enough. “I saw my daughter being kidnapped! I need the police here now.” She quickly gave the address to their home at the end of a quiet street.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew the street would no longer remain quiet—but nothing could prepare her for what was about to happen to her small, upscale coastal town.

***

The first cruiser appeared within minutes, its lights strobing red and blue against the clapboard houses, shattering the sleepy stillness of the street. Two officers stepped out, hands resting on their belts, scanning the area with quick, practiced movements. Mallory met them halfway down the drive, breathless, clutching her phone like a lifeline. She explained everything in a rush—her voice trembling, words tumbling over one another. She was an English teacher, she told them, the kind who spent her days grading essays and corralling restless teenagers, not the sort of person who made enemies. Her husband, Noah, worked high up in IT for a major company, but his world was all servers and security protocols—no shady deals, no grudges that could lead to something like this. It made no sense. Julia was just twelve. She played soccer, loved reading, and had never been in trouble. As Mallory spoke, the disbelief in her voice mirrored the bewildered expressions on the officers’ faces.

One of the officers, a broad-shouldered man with a trimmed beard and the kind of calm that felt almost accusatory, pulled out a small notepad. “Mrs. Porter, you’re certain you saw someone take her? You didn’t just… lose sight of her?”

Mallory’s jaw clenched. “I watched the door slam shut. The locks clicked before I could grab the handle. She was inside that car.”

The second officer, younger, with sharp eyes that didn’t blink enough, stepped closer. “Any chance Julia ran off on her own? An argument earlier today? Trouble at school?”

Mallory shook her head hard. “No. She was in her pajamas.”

“What about your husband?” the bearded officer asked, his gaze flicking toward Noah, who stood stiffly on the lawn with Anna at his side. “Anyone at his work upset with him? A bad deal? Layoffs?”

Noah’s voice was flat. “I manage cybersecurity at an insurance company. My enemies are usually lines of code.”

The younger officer scribbled something, then glanced back at Mallory. “And you? Any students with grudges? Parents unhappy with grades?”

Mallory’s laugh was bitter and too loud. “I teach Shakespeare and essay structure, not organized crime.”

Still, the questions hung in the air, as if the officers were already turning over stones she didn’t even know existed.

The officers split up, one heading toward the neighbors’ houses while the other swept a flashlight beam along the curb. The air smelled faintly of burned rubber, the echo of the sedan’s escape lingering in the quiet.

“Over here,” the younger officer called, his voice low but urgent. Mallory hurried to his side, Noah and Anna trailing behind.

On the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk sat a discarded cell phone, the screen cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Mallory’s stomach dropped—she recognized the purple glitter case instantly.

“That’s Julia’s,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

The officer crouched, slipping on a pair of gloves before lifting it into an evidence bag. “Looks like it was smashed on impact. Might still pull data from it.”

Mallory reached out as if she could somehow will the phone back into her daughter’s hand. “She never goes anywhere without it.”

The bearded officer reappeared, his face unreadable. “None of your neighbors saw the car. Cameras on this street are… minimal. Whoever took her knew what they were doing.”

Mallory felt her legs weaken. If this wasn’t random, then someone had planned it—and that meant they knew Julia.

To read the 1st half of Chapter 4 Click Here