On the train, a man stared at me. Unsettled, I got off early. Minutes later, my husband called, panicked, urging me to return to the station. His voice shook—unlike him. I ran back, heart pounding, and spotted a crying girl in a pink jacket, clutching a stuffed lion, hiding by a vending machine. She was maybe five, with a hospital bracelet reading “Lina.”
My phone died as I tried calling security. A passerby recognized her from an Amber Alert—she’d been kidnapped days ago. The man on the train had been watching her, not me. Chaos erupted; security and her uncle arrived. Lina was safe, but I was shaken. The man, I later learned, was her grandfather, who’d noticed me at a park weeks earlier, sensing something off about Lina’s situation. He’d died of a stroke, but not before insisting I’d save her.
I couldn’t let it go. I started volunteering at a missing persons call center, paying closer attention to people. Months later, Lina’s mother sent a letter, thanking me for giving her daughter back—and her father peace. I don’t know why I was chosen, but I’m trying to live up to that stranger’s faith in me.
