Gabi’s voice stayed low and calm, the same tone she used when she walked a kid through stitches or talked an old man down from panicking about chest pain. “Okay, we’re going to step into an exam room. You’re going to sit down. We’re going to get you some water, and we’ll go from there.”
Priya nodded. She didn’t look at me or Madden. She kept her eyes on the floor like it might tilt under her feet if she lifted her head. She moved carefully, testing each step.
I followed at a distance I didn’t like.
Gabi paused at an open doorway and guided Priya inside. Priya sat on the edge of the exam table with a wince, hands on either side like she was bracing for the world to shake again.
Gabi touched her shoulder once. “I’m going to close the door. Not to shut anyone out but to give you privacy. You tell me what you need, okay?”
Priya’s throat moved. “Okay.”
Gabi looked up at me over Priya’s shoulder. “I’ve got her.”
And this was why I’d called her to meet us here instead of taking Priya straight to the police station. Because I could hand Priya off to someone I trusted to take care of her.
Nodding, I stepped back and let the door shut. Only then did I finally take a full breath.
Not relief—not yet. I didn’t have that kind of luxury. But something loosened anyway. We’d gotten Priya out. We’d gotten her to the one person on this island I trusted to assess her without missing anything, without letting anyone bulldoze her, without letting pride or politics set the pace.
Priya had said he didn’t hurt her.
That mattered. It also didn’t mean shit.
People said all kinds of things while they were still in survival mode. Sometimes they didn’t know what counted as hurt until someone asked the right questions. Sometimes they didn’t want to say the words out loud because then they’d have to live in a world where those words were true.
Gabi would get to the truth. Gabi would know if there were bruises under clothes, injuries she couldn’t feel yet, signs that demanded a kit and documentation and a chain of custody that didn’t leave room for anyone to shrug later and say, No evidence.
Madden’s hand slipped into mine, and her head tipped to my shoulder. “We found her. You found her.”
I’d followed my gut, and this time it had paid off.
That still hadn’t quite sunk in. Maybe it wouldn’t until the son of a bitch who’d held her actually got brought in and put in a cage. Maybe it would take longer than that. Some part of me still believed that missing women weren’t problems you actually got to solve. They were a problem you lived with. One that became posters. Candlelight vigils. Shrugs. Rumors. Blame. Because that was what Gwen had been.
But we’d found Priya before it was too late.
“We need to call the cops,” I muttered.
Madden’s fingers tightened around mine. “It can wait a few minutes. I’m calling Astrid first. Priya needs one of her people.”
I understood what she meant even though she didn’t say it outright.
Astrid wasn’t merely a friend. Astrid was safety. An adult Priya trusted. She would make the world feel less like a fluorescent hallway and more like something Priya could survive.
Madden released my hand and stepped a few feet away, phone already in her palm. She turned her body slightly like she was shielding the call from the rest of the world—not because she was hiding it, but because privacy was a habit she didn’t shed easily.
I watched her mouth move as she spoke. I couldn’t hear the words over the faint sounds from inside the exam room—drawers opening, paper crinkling, Gabi’s measured questions—but I could read the shape of it. Short. Controlled. Urgent.
Madden ended the call and came back. “She’s on her way.”
“Good.” I pulled my own phone out and dialed 911.
A voice answered, practiced and clipped. “Sutter’s Ferry 911, what is your emergency?”
“This is Rios Carrera. We’ve recovered Priya Shah. She’s at the clinic for medical evaluation. We have a suspect description and a location tied to where she was held.”
The line went quiet for half a beat—not silence, exactly, but that subtle shift when someone’s attention locks. “Repeat that?”
I repeated it. Slower. Clearer. I gave the clinic address, though there was only one on the island. I gave the basic facts I could without turning it into a story. I gave the location of the shack in the marsh, the condition of the door.
