“What?”

“He put the gun down right next to me.” I splayed the fingers of my good hand and swiped at the air. “It was right there.”

“You were traumatized, out of your mind. I’m sure—”

“I could have ended it. That man killed three women and a cop. I could have restrained him, and I didn’t.” I felt queasy, but I needed to finish. Get it all out. “Stockholm syndrome. Terror-bonding. Whatever you want to call it, that was the diagnosis.” God, how I hated those terms. They were go-tos for the press, just what the reporters who covered my story needed to romanticize my trauma and turn nightmares into content that sells online ads. “He could have killed me, but day after day he let me live. I guess some part of me was grateful for that.

“At first, it was just about staying on his good side,” I said. “He could have easily left me there to starve. I depended on him to keep me alive, so I had to behave. But I also kept track of the hours and looked for patterns in his behavior and actions—anything I could use to my advantage when the time was right. Sometimes he showed up sweaty and smelling like synthetic lemons. I figured out Bram was the building’s janitor, and that he only worked part-time. He had less patience for me on the days he smelled, and I learned to be cautious when he jangled with keys. I’m sure he knew I was reading him. Once he asked if I was enjoying myself, trying to get inside his head. I told him I monitored his moods because I wanted him to be happy. I oozed obedience. Out in the world my precinct was killing themselves trying to find me, but I wasn’t holding my breath. There was the bartender’s eyewitness account and video footage of Bram, but nobody had his real name. He paid with cash the night he took me, and without a criminal record, his picture wasn’t in the database. If I wanted to live, I couldn’t count on anyone but myself.

“After a while I stopped thinking of Bram as the killer we were looking for. We were both from the same town. There was no defense for what he did. But my emotions took over, and not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for that. The bottom line is I let him go. And someone else is going to die because of it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, Tim, I do. Bram had his reasons for what he did to those women, and for taking me. He wanted something from me that he didn’t get.”

“But, Shana—”

“I made a choice. I wasn’t in my right mind, but I made it all the same.” I laughed a little. “You aren’t the first person to say this isn’t my fault. When the diagnosis came in, the NYPD absolved me of responsibility. There was no investigation into my conduct in that basement, but I resigned from the force anyway. I shouldn’t be here, Tim. This is the last place I should be.”