At the retail store I worked at, whenever there was a missing child, we’d call a “Code Adam.” Everyone dropped what they were doing to help search.
One slow night, a 10 year-old couldn’t be found. The parent was panicking, convinced he’d been kidnapped. I gently asked if maybe he’d gone out to the car on his own, only to get yelled at for “not taking it seriously.”
And guess where he was? Sitting in the car.
Sometimes the scariest moments end with the simplest answers.