The air felt wrong that morning.
Not the kind of wrong you can explain - more like a shadow that moves when nothing's there.
I'd already refreshed her Facebook and Instagram ten times before I admitted it: my baby hadn't posted in days. No memes. No pictures. Not even a "good morning" text. For her, that was a red flag big enough to wave from the moon.
I called. Straight to voicemail.
I texted. No read receipt.
By the third try, my stomach was a fist.
I called the campus police first.
"She's an adult," the officer said, his voice flat.
"She's missing," I corrected.
"We can't list her as missing until she's been gone seventy-two hours."
"Seventy-two hours?" I could hear my own pulse in my ears. "If she's in trouble, she won't have seventy-two minutes."
His sigh was slow, tired. "Ma'am, maybe she just needs some space."
The city police weren't any better.
"Could be she's with friends."
"She has a life you don't know about."
"People her age go off the grid all the time."
But I knew my daughter. She was a sharer. She posted everything - new shoes, bad hair days, the way the sky looked before it rained. Silence wasn't her style.
That's when the DM came.
No greeting. No name. Just a screenshot.
She was sitting in a booth, eyes glassy, skin pale. A half-empty glass sat in front of her. Behind her, a sliver of neon sign glowed.
The caption read:
"I shouldn't have trusted them."
My fingers flew over the keyboard.
Who are you? Where is she?
The reply was one word.
California.
I called my best friend, Sheryl.
"I'm going to get her."
"Where?" she asked, like there was no question about whether she'd come.
"La Vista, California."
"When do we leave?"
I packed like a soldier on deployment - Bible, charger, water, snacks, change of clothes, flashlight, pepper spray, anointing oil, and the gun I prayed I wouldn't need. I left a note on the kitchen counter in case anyone came looking:
On a rescue mission. Don't call unless it's to pray.
By the time Sheryl pulled up, the sun was just starting to bleed into the sky. She climbed in with coffee, a blanket, and a map.
"We drive straight through?" she asked.
"Straight through," I said.
Florida fell away behind us. The highway stretched ahead like a silver blade. We prayed in turns. We took shifts driving. Every hour or so, I'd call the La Vista police with updates. Every time, I got the same response:
"Ma'am, we'll look into it."
By the time we hit Louisiana, I stopped waiting on them. This wasn't their mission. It was mine.
Somewhere in Texas, exhaustion caught me. My eyelids felt heavy enough to pull my head down. The road blurred. That's when the blinding lights appeared - an 18-wheeler swerving into our lane.
Sheryl screamed my name. I jerked the wheel hard, tires screeching. We swerved just in time, the roar of the truck shaking the car.
We sat on the shoulder for a long minute, hearts pounding, hazard lights clicking like a metronome for panic.
Finally, Sheryl whispered, "God just kept us alive. You know that, right?"
I nodded, gripping the wheel tighter. "He didn't bring us this far to stop us."
We pulled back onto the road, the hum of the engine a steady heartbeat. Every mile brought me closer to my baby. And every mile, I prayed harder:
Lord, blind the enemy. Keep her hidden until I get there.
Because I was coming.
And I wasn't coming empty-handed.