More cars rolled onto the site, surrounding Spencer’s vehicle. Jordan gripped the phone and listened to the cops assembling. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the grouping of officers dressed in black, ready to breach the house. She imagined their tactical discussions and the gear checks.

Too anxious to sit, she opened her car door and slid out, careful not to close it for fear she would attract attention.

She shifted her face toward the palpable energy swirling among the officers, as it did before a raid. A silence settled. A breeze caught a wind chime somewhere in the distance.

And then footsteps thundered upstairs, and a crash signaled that the front door had been breached. Gripping her phone, she took a step toward the house.

“Detective Poe.” The male voice sounded young. “Ranger Spencer issued orders for you not to leave the car.”

“Who is this?”

“Deputy Menendez,” he said.

“Have we met before?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Look,” she said, masking the tension humming under her voice. “I have been a part of this case since the beginning.”

“I’ve heard.”

“I need to know Casey is all right.”

The shouts of the cops reverberated from the house. Jordan stepped forward, but her path closed as the deputy stepped in front of her. “Can’t let you do that.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“Ranger Spencer said to put you in cuffs if I have to. You and Ms. Andrews are safer if you stay here with me.”

She flexed her fingers. The logic did little to quell her agitation. Casey’s fate was in the hands of one of the best lawmen in Texas, but Jordan desperately craved the action. She missed it. Missed her job. Missed her life.

The house’s front door opened, and Spencer called out, “We have her.”

Emotion banded around her chest. “How is she?”

Spencer’s footsteps grew louder as he approached. “Alive. Well. We have her out of the house.”

“Can I talk to her?” Jordan asked.

“Paramedics are with her now.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s been in total darkness for over a week, she’s malnourished, and she’s been sexually assaulted multiple times. They’re getting her on a stretcher and an IV in her. She’s also in drug withdrawal.”

“Drugs?”

“He’s been injecting her since the night he took her.”

“Did she say why?”

“She doesn’t know.”

Jordan folded her arms over her chest. “He didn’t have to leave her the phone,” she said. “He could have let her die in that basement.”

“I don’t begin to understand Rawlings’s motivation on this one. Hopefully, Casey can shed some light. She was with him for ten days.”

The wheels of the paramedics’ stretcher rumbled, and she knew the rescue team was on the move with Casey. “Can I see her?”