Author(s): Carol Topolski

Fiction.

'I've kicked myself that I didn't do anything about it then. I've often thought, what if I had? Would she be alive now?' - Charlotte, neighbour. 'I wonder at how gullible I was...because when I asked them if I could see Samantha, just for the record, she said she was playing at the rec with her friends and I just went Oh, OK' - Kaye, social worker. 'You see it all the time in videos and that, but until you're in the room with them you don't really know what it means' - Sharon, juror. No one in the neighbourhood has seen the Gutteridges' little girl Samantha for months. But Brendan and Sherilyn look happier that ever, so nothing is wrong. Is it? For the Gutteridges, Samantha was just a thing that threatened to worm its way into their perfect love. For everyone else, her story is the stuff of tabloid headlines. But this time it's not in a newspaper, it's happening right next door.