“Who locked the door?” the lieutenant asked.

The man looked toward his key ring.

Nobody helped him answer.

We moved the women to the medical staging area in separate vehicles, leaving the van untouched for the evidence team. I went with Tessa. She sat upright the whole journey, watching the door handle instead of the road.

When we stopped, I opened my door first and walked around so she could see me outside.

She tried her handle.

The door opened.

She closed it, opened it again, and then climbed out.

Ronan waited beyond the ambulance with a stack of blankets. He had removed his sunglasses. His hands were full, his posture loose, and for once he had managed to look like a man who had never enjoyed a fight.

“Blue or gray?” he asked Tessa.

She blinked at him.

He raised the blankets. “I'm told the blue ones are softer. I have conducted no independent research.”

She took a blue one.

“Good choice.”

He did not wrap it around her. She did that herself.

I loved him so sharply in that moment that I had to look away.

A volunteer approached with a box of donated shoes. Tessa backed up before the woman could kneel.

“You can look yourself,” the volunteer said, setting the box on an empty chair.

Tessa glanced at me.

“Nobody needs a signature,” I told her.

She chose a pair of green sneakers with white laces. One lace had knotted itself twice. Ronan offered a chair, then stood holding the shoebox while she worked the knot loose with her injured fingers.

He didn't hurry her.

When she finally put them on, she took several steps and looked down as if expecting somebody to object.

“They fit,” she said.

“Keep them,” the volunteer answered.

Tessa tucked the hospital slippers into the box. Her shoulders lowered for the first time since the doors opened.

I asked the evidence officer to keep her recorded explanation with the consent form. I wanted the two versions of that morning kept together: what the paper claimed, and what she had actually been allowed to choose.

The women were counted, assessed, and offered separate spaces to rest. Six people out of one supposedly empty vehicle. The driver was under arrest. None of them would be returning to him.

Only after the last ambulance door closed did I notice my hands shaking.

Ronan noticed too.

He held out a bottle of water and waited while I drank half of it.

“You followed every instruction,” I said.

“Try to contain your surprise.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. It was exhausting.”

I caught the front of his jacket and pulled him close.

His smile disappeared when he saw my face.

“Hey.”

I pressed my forehead against his chest. He put one hand on my back, light enough that I could leave whenever I needed.

For ten seconds, I let someone else stand upright for me.

“I kept thinking of those old reports,” I said. “All the times someone wrote voluntary.”

His hand settled more firmly.

“Six women got out today.”

“There are more.”

“I know.”

He didn't tell me it was enough. That was why I could lift my head and kiss him, briefly, in a parking lot full of people who knew exactly who we were.

“Don't get used to this,” I murmured.

“Being appreciated? Never.”

My radio called me back.

The unit at the yard had seen a gray-haired man move between the second van and a service building. A woman was with him. The officer could not tell whether she was being held or helped.

I asked for the description, then showed Tessa a photograph from Harrow's official identification, explaining why.

She recognized him at once.

“That's him.”

“Do you know the woman?”

“Nell. She was in my room.”

Tessa gripped the blanket. “She can't run well. They took her knee brace.”

I passed the information to the lieutenant. He sent the description to the team and requested another ambulance for the yard.

Silas and Evelyn arrived at the staging area while we were preparing to move. Evelyn went straight to Maeve's treatment table. Silas came to me.

“Where do you need us?”

“Outside the yard until the lieutenant clears you in. Your hearing may help. No one moves on a guess.”

He nodded.

Ronan squeezed my hand once before returning to the transport volunteers.

Then the radio crackled.

“Detective. Visual confirmed on Harrow.”

I reached for my car door.

“He's got a gun against the woman's neck.”