On a Mission Policewoman Recognizes Her Father Who Disappeared 10 Years Ago – Story of the Day

A policewoman called to apprehend a bank robber gets the shock of her life when she discovers that he was none other than her father, who vanished a decade ago.

"This will be your room Carla. You get to share it with Mona, Lisa, and Jenny," Miss Croft, the orphanage owner, said. She was talking to Carla, a 13-year-old girl who had been brought to the orphanage by her distraught mother.

"I need you to care for her," the girl's mother, Zoey, had told Croft with tears in her eyes.

"Shouldn't you do that yourself?" Croft asked the woman with a flat look.

"I want to, I assure you, but I can't. I just filed for bankruptcy and have no way to survive. I wish you to take her in while I try to make something of myself, that's all," Zoey told her sadly.

When it seemed like the woman was not convinced, Zoey revealed that her husband had deserted them because he didn't want to be tied down to a woman.

"What a dreadful man," Croft had said.

She and Zoey had both been unaware that the young Carla had been listening in on the conversation and had heard about how her father left them.

The little girl found herself resenting him as she watched her mom leave without so much as a wave to her. "He did this," she thought. "He left us and now Mom has left me."

Zoey promised to return for Carla after some time, but one month became a year, and a year morphed into several without a word from the woman.

Croft raised Carla with great morals, and the girl thrived; in school, she kept good grades, and socially, she was one of the most liked kids in the orphanage.

Since childhood, Carla had dreamt of becoming a policewoman, so when she was old enough, she channeled her focus into it.

Like anything she put her mind to, Carla succeeded, winning a scholarship that covered her tuition for the duration of her stay at the Police Academy, where she eventually graduated with honors.

One day, while patrolling the city with her partner, Joe, she received a call from the police operator. "This is dispatch, a fugitive has been sighted in the Hotel Del Luna — he is the same one from the bank robbery that happened ten years ago. All units report."

The hotel was just a mile away from Carla's location, so she radioed in to say they were en route. When they arrived at the location, no other cop cruiser was in sight.

"Do you think we should wait for reinforcement?" Joe asked.

"It's just a man, we can take him. You wait here while I go around the back and flush him out," she replied.

After creeping around the back, Carla rushed into the hotel room with a gun. "Freeze!" She yelled, but she was shocked by what she saw — the thief looked just like her father, Jim.

"No, scratch that," she thought. "He is my father!"

The man also recognized her almost immediately, but as he lowered his hands, Carla leveled her gun at his face, tears quickly clouding her sight.

"Carla?" he said.

"Don't you dare say my name!" she muttered through clenched teeth. "Give me at least one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now. You ruined my life!"

"Please let me explain everything. It's not what you think," he said with pleading eyes. She nodded, and he launched into his story.

He said that when she was 13, they were at the brink of poverty. He had been working two jobs, but his wife squandered the money on herself.

She bought a lot of clothes and jewelry, and sometimes it ate into their savings so that they didn't have money to go to the supermarket and buy food.

He knew that Carla harbored dreams of becoming a policewoman, and he wanted her dream to come true, but he had also known that they would not be able to afford to send her to college.

To that end, he and his wife created a plan; he would rob a small bank and pass 70% of the money to his wife so she and Carla might live wealthy lives and Carla could study at the police academy.

30% of the money should have gone to him; he was to take it and go into hiding for years, then come to them when the heat dissipated. Things had gone on as planned, but his wife deceived him.

Zoey declared bankruptcy after taking the cash and took Carla to the orphanage. She took all the money and disappeared.

Jim learned this and was shocked. He knew that he could not give himself over to the police, so he hatched a plan with Carla's teacher at the orphanage and told her what happened.

She had graciously agreed to help him, so Carla's father gave her all the money he had. "Please make sure she gets everything," Jim had told the woman.

The woman kept her word and paid for Carla's tuition at the police academy when the time came. She told Carla that she had won a scholarship, but it had all been the money Jim gave her.

Carla could not believe her ears. All those years, she had believed that her father betrayed her and her mother when in truth, the reverse had happened.

The thought about helping her father avoid jail time crossed Carla's mind but she had always been a patriotic citizen – one of the main reasons she joined the force – so she knew that protecting a fugitive wasn't an option. However, she tried to help her father get a more lenient sentence.

She made sure to visit her father in jail as much as she could. And when he eventually got out – they reunited and started living together again.

Her mother was never found, but Carla was fine with not meeting her ever again. She was content with knowing that her father was alive, well, and by her side.

What did we gain from this story?

• Greed ruins everything. Zoey betrayed her own family because of the greed she had for money, and it nearly ruined the family. Thankfully, both Carla and her father were able to survive and make better lives for themselves. Greed should be avoided by all means.
• Listen first before taking action. Carla could have chosen not to listen to her father, especially since she had little reason to trust him. Luckily she decided to hear him out, and that helped them clear up the misunderstanding.

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If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a mother who ruined her daughter's childhood by always asserting herself, then she regrets it.

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