It could have been me

It happened in summer, when I was 12 and my sister was 9. We were visiting my friends in Hamburg-Germany. We were allowed to walk in the park around the corner. My friend was 10, so we had to watch my little sister. We were bored and I wanted to go home, but my friend said "Lets just watch her for 15 min longer". We agreed, played tag and hide and seek, after maybe 30 min we wanted to leave again. My sister didn't come out of her hiding spot. We looked everywhere and called for her. Nothing. I freaked out. 1. Because I lost her and 2. Because my mom was gonna kill me when we got home. I went to a nearby house to call the police. They arrived really quickly and asked me some questions. They weren't sure if she had been kidnapped or just ran away. So they went to our friends house to check on her. They found her there, safe and sound. I was so relieved and thankful that she hadn't been kidnapped. 1-2 weeks later my mom told me that the police had found a pedophile in the park. He was known and they hadn't been able to arrest him for quite some time. I asked what happened to him, my mom told me, he had been arrested the day we lost my sister. I asked her what he was arrested for. She told me that he had kidnapped and raped a 12 year old girl. I was horrified. I will never forget the look on my moms face when I told her "It could have been me". I'm still thankful that she didn't want to play with us.