“Come get your worthless daughter and take her back,” my mother-in-law shouted my father as I lay broken at the bottom of the stairs after my husband shoved me down. “Your family will answer for it if she has even a scratch,” was the sole warning Dad offered her. They had no notion who my father really was, so they made fun of him.

“And stealing Maya gives them full control over my silence,” I whispered.

“Exactly what they intended.” Dad confirmed.

Slowly.

Suddenly the door to the hospital room clicked open.

A uniformed police officer entered the bay, followed by a woman in a grey professional coat.

Reddish-auburn hair was pulled back in a clip, and a faint scar was above her left eyebrow.

Her eyes connected with mine and she froze dead in her tracks.

No one in the room spoke for three long seconds.