Erin heaved herself onto her side. She had no sense of the space around her. How big. How small. She was inside, somewhere, but the room was hot. Damp sweat covered her skin. When she tried to bring her knees toward her chest, her ankles resisted. They were tethered on a short leash to something heavy and solid. A steel table, immovable. She kicked at it and realized her feet were bare. Her shoes had been taken. She wriggled around and sat up.

She knew who she was but not where she was or how she’d gotten here or how long she’d been in this place. Time had no meaning. My name is Erin. I am a dental hygienist in Grand Forks. I am on vacation to see . . .

That was it. Matt. Mattie_1987. Matt the paralegal. Funny, sweet, athletic, such a shy, sexy face. Most men didn’t understand her, but Matt did. He seemed to know what it was like to be her, all the insecurities, all the nervousness when she looked in the mirror, all the doubts about where she was going in life. She’d never believed she could fall in love with someone online, but that was before she found Matt in the chat room. It was easier to talk to him than to anyone in her real life. There was something about the anonymity of the darkness and the screen that made her tell him secrets. She shared things with him that she’d never shared with her family or friends. Not that she had many friends. Or family, other than a distant sibling and parents who didn’t really understand her.

That’s me, too, he said. I know how you feel.

He was like her soul mate.

But her soul mate never showed up. She felt as if she’d lost hours in her brain. Lost days that were gray in her memory. She had a cloudy memory of a bar. Drinking. Waiting. Growing sad and anxious as time passed and the evening waned. More drinking. Where was he? She’d driven to Duluth to meet him. He’d said he would be there for her.

Texting over and over. No response. I’m here, Mattie, where are you?

Then the blackness descended. And now the terror. Not knowing where she was or how she’d gotten to this place or why she’d been imprisoned. It was an empty road between there and here.

Outside, she heard the scratch of footsteps on dirt. The cardinal, alarmed, stopped singing. Her first thought was of rescue, but she knew that no one was coming to release her. She listened, hearing the footsteps pause. There was a stretch of silence and then the metallic rattle of a lock being undone.