"Route 73?" Callie asked.
"I believe so."
"Did you fill up at a gas station before you left?"
"I think."
"Do you know which one?"
"I'm not sure."
"Go on." Callie wrote in her notebook.
"A vehicle came along and offered me a ride."
"Male or female?"
"Male."
"What made you get in?"
"He was a driver for a rideshare company. On his way back to High Peaks. I know it was stupid, but we weren't far. He seemed kind." A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it with the back of her hand. It wasn’t sadness. Maybe embarrassment. The shame of a young woman replaying the moment she trusted someone she shouldn't have.
Callie placed a hand over hers. "Keep going."
"I got in the back and we pulled away. He was talking to me. Normal questions. Where I was heading, what I was studying. And then I noticed him fumbling with something on his face, like he was pulling up a medical mask. And there was this sweet smell. Like gas. Coming from the cupholders in the center console. I asked him what it was." Her breathing quickened. "I started feeling tingling in my body. My arms went limp. And then I passed out."
"What else do you remember next?”
"Fragments. Movement. Sound. Talking. A woman's voice. The world shifting around me. Being carried into some room." She swallowed. "A mattress. When I came to, I was in this place. Just a bed and a pot to piss in. There was a door. I still felt awful. I threw up. I banged on the door. That's when I heard anothergirl's voice. She told me to be quiet. That if I didn't, he would come back."
"You think there were more girls there?"
"I assume."
Noah stepped forward from the window and held out his phone. A photograph of Brooke Danvers on the screen. "Did you see this girl?”
"No. I only heard a voice. She told me her name was... Bran. Bro..."
"Brooke Danvers," Callie offered. "Does that sound familiar?"
Hailey nodded slowly. "That was it. She was there. She told me she was going to help me escape. That she'd found a way to get out of there. But I don't remember much. Only that she mentioned a window of opportunity when they brought food."
"They?"
“I think there was more than one. I heard a woman too."
"Did you see them before you escaped?"
"A couple of times. But each time I would smell that sweet smell first, and they would come in and everything went blurry." Her voice dropped. The monitors beeped. Outside the window the sky was turning toward dusk. "He had soft hands. When he touched me his hands were soft. And his voice was gentle. Calm. Like he was trying to make me feel safe while he was doing something terrible. He would hold me down but not rough. Almost careful. He'd tell me to relax. That I was there for a purpose. That if I did what I was told, they would let me go."
She closed her eyes. Tears ran down both cheeks and her chest began hitching, shallow rapid breaths that the monitor picked up as an elevated heart rate.
"But they didn't. They didn't let me go."
Callie leaned forward and placed both hands on Hailey's. "Breathe with me. In through your nose. Slowly. Out throughyour mouth." She counted with her, four in, four out, until the hitching eased and the monitor settled into a steadier rhythm.
When Hailey's breathing was under control, Callie spoke again. "Do you remember how you got out? Anything about the place you escaped from? Was it a farm? A building?"
