The rest of the team had joined them but remained in the background.
He kept his posture relaxed, but his attention was locked in—on the screen, on Andi beside him, on the weight of what they were about to hear.
Finally, the screen flickered.
Gina appeared, her head held up by the hospital bed behind her.
She looked thinner than Duke had expected. Pale. Wrapped in a blanket, hair pulled back, dark circles beneath her eyes. She was alive but clearly still standing on the edge of what she’d survived.
Andi leaned closer to the screen. “Hi, Gina.”
Gina gave a small nod then swallowed. “Hi.”
Andi did a quick introduction, explaining who they were and what was going on.
Duke watched her as she spoke, tracking the cadence of her breathing, the way her eyes flicked to the side as if replaying images she couldn’t shut off. She had a way of being kind but professional—partly it was her character and partly it was her training as an attorney.
“They found me this morning. I didn’t think anyone would. Not after . . .” Gina trailed off, tears filling her eyes. “I was able to escape. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
“Tell us what happened,” Duke said, careful to keep his voice gentle.
She drew in a shaky breath. “This man . . . he grabbed me from the parking garage. Took me to a cabin in the mountains. Somewhere remote. I don’t know where.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, and they gave her a moment to gather herself.
Then she started again, her voice tighter now. “I think . . . I think he left me there to die. And I might have. But I managed to get the door open. I think the locking mechanism must have failed or something. All I knew was that I needed to leave. So I did. I ran—barefoot—as fast as I could. I was about to give up. I didn’t think I could make it another step. I thought I was going to die out there.”
Duke’s jaw tightened.
“Then I stumbled onto a road,” Gina said. “I had no idea it was there until I broke through the brush and . . . there it was, almost like it had been waiting for me. I walked a little way until this family came by in their car and found me. I must’ve looked terrible. But they helped me anyway.”
“Gina, this man who took you . . .” Andi said. “Did you recognize him? His face? His voice? Anything about him?”
Gina shook her head. “No. He wore this light on his head. It was like a headlamp but brighter. Blinding. I couldn’t see anything else. I tried. I really tried.”
“He didn’t want you to see his face,” Andi murmured.
Gina’s eyes flicked up sharply. “Exactly. He had all kinds of rules. It was like he was playing a game or something.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”
Gina leaned closer to the camera and lowered her voice. “There’s something else.”
Andi straightened. “What is it?”
Gina hesitated, fear creeping back into her expression. “He’s done this before. He said that people like me were easy targets. That we needed to pay for what we’d done when we disappeared by our own freewill and people thought we were missing. He said there were more.”
The pieces clicked into place in Duke’s mind, cold and precise. “You’re sure?”
Gina nodded. “He wasn’t bragging. He was . . . explaining almost.”
Duke glanced at Andi then back at Gina. “You did exactly what you needed to do to survive. And you’ve already helped us more than you know.”
Her eyes shone with tears. “Please. Stop him. Please.”
Duke didn’t hesitate. “We will.”
When the call ended, the room felt different—charged and heavier but unmistakably clearer.
