"I don't remember. It was night. I hid in the woods for hours. I thought they would find me. I just kept moving."
"But how? If they were drugging you?"
Hailey's face went blank. She couldn't answer that. The gap between the sedation and the escape was a void she couldn't fill, and pressing on it only pushed her further from the edges of what she could reach.
Noah pulled a series of photographs from his jacket and spread them on the blanket before her. Men's faces. Community members they'd brought in during the raid, booking photos, license images. Derek Hollis was among them, third from the left.
"Were any of these men the driver?"
Hailey scanned them. Her eyes moved across the row and her brow tightened but nothing registered. "I don't know. It was dark. I couldn't see much."
"You said he looked kind."
"I meant he sounded kind."
"No, you said he looked kind." Noah's voice was steady but there was weight behind it now. "You said he was from a ridesharing company. Try again."
"I don't know. Everything is so..."
"What was the rideshare name?"
Her face crumbled. Tears came again, harder this time, her shoulders shaking against the pillow. Callie looked at Noah and held his gaze until he felt it.
"Noah."
"Look again," he pressed one final time. "You said he looked kind. You must have seen his face."
"I did. I just... can't remember."
The nurse stepped in, reading the situation in a single glance. The crying patient. The detective standing too close. The photographs spread across the bedding.
"I think you all should go now. Give her some space."
Callie nodded and rose from the chair. Noah gathered the photographs and stepped back. They left the room without speaking, the deputy watching them pass.
Callie waiteduntil they were halfway down the corridor before she let it go.
"What the hell was that back there?"
Noah kept walking. "Sometimes you have to push them."
"She's traumatized."
"And she saw him, Callie."
"If that's the case, maybe she'll get her memory back and tell us when she's ready. But you push like that, single out Derek Hollis in those photos, and anything she gives us might not hold up in court. Her statement will be worthless."
There was a beat. Noah stopped walking. They stood under the fluorescent lights with a cart of clean linens parked against the wall beside them and a nurse passing without looking up.
"Let's get a sketch artist in," Noah said. "Work with what she can describe. Go from there."
"You really think she's going to give us anything we can use? She barely remembers what happened. It's fragments."
"And like you said, maybe she'll get her memory back."
"She may not tell us even if she does. She looked directly at those photos. The best we can hope for is she's connected somehow to the Three Pillar Community or the Strutz Agency."
"You heard her. She was on her way back to college. No mention of modeling."
