A red haze obscured Alyssa’s vision, but she forced herself to flip the image over. All the blood in her body drained down to pool at her feet. The image in her hand scared the hell out of her far more than any crime scene ever had.

She’d seen this photograph before – well, the unaltered version of it. It was one of hundreds that evidence technicians had taken when the trafficked girls had been located back in May. But how would someone outside of law enforcement have access to this photograph? In the original, Jersey and three other girls stared out of their cell as they waited for someone to unlock their cage and rescue them from their nightmare. Jersey had collapsed against the metal bars that day, crying out when she recognized Alyssa had come for her.

In this photo, however, three of the faces were scratched out, and superimposed over Jersey’s was Holly’s. The explicit threat was chilling in its own right, but it was the implicit threat that had Alyssa wanting to snatch Holly up right this second and lock her away in a convent. She didn’t know how it was possible to be both numb and boiling over with rage, but she was.

‘What the hell! Someone better start explaining.’ The tic of Cord’s pulse was clearly visible in the tendons bulging in his neck.

Four pairs of eyes darted back and forth between Holly and Alyssa, but Alyssa was focused on her daughter. Like her mother, Holly kept her real emotions safely under wraps, afraid of ‘being a burden’ or worrying everyone more than they already were. But this situation was different than some minor incident like denting the car or failing an exam; this was her daughter’s life.

The uncomfortable, awkward silence grew thicker the longer it stretched out. Finally, Nick, in an admirably controlled voice and never taking his eyes off Holly, filled Cord in.

As Nick finished explaining the best he could, Alyssa turned to see her partner and friend firing daggers of barely suppressed anger in her direction. It took her a split second to grasp why he was so pissed at her – she’d failed to mention the first set of photographs last night when he’d called, and he was taking it as a personal affront. She opened her mouth to explain, but he stopped her with one growled word through clenched teeth: ‘Later.’

Later was going to have to wait because after Holly and her friends left, Alyssa had one foot dangerously dangling off the ledge of losing her cool entirely, and she knew if she didn’t get five minutes to herself, her wrath was going to rain down on a lot of undeserving people.