I understand what she’s been through. Not just because I’ve been starved. Not just because I was once bound and gagged in the trunk of a psycho’s car and later chained up in his basement.

It’s because I’m a bad guy. As bad as Luxford. So I can imagine everything he would have done to her.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘He’s not coming back. Ever. Okay? If he does, I’ll rip his throat out.’

She looks at me uncertainly. ‘You’ll what?’

‘I’ll rip his throat out, like a mad dog. I’m not even kidding.’

She grips my fingers through the air holes. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t, I promise. We’re walking out of here together. You and me. Okay?’

‘I want my mom,’ she says. ‘Can you call my mom?’

‘We will. You’re Abbey, right?’

She snatches her hands away, suddenly suspicious. Like I’m in league with Luxford. ‘How did you know that?’

‘You’re listed as missing,’ I say. ‘People have been looking for you.’

Albrecht and Terracini enter the room. Albrecht looks grim. She hurries over to the door and starts punching out the padlocks with the chisel. Terracini takes in the glass, the buckets, the camera, and goes pale.

‘Catch him,’ I say. ‘Catch him!’

Thistle whirls around in time to grab Terracini as he faints. Puffing, she lowers him to the ground. He’ll never live this down.

•

Abbey lived in Columbus, Ohio, before she came to Houston for college on a scholarship. Her mom came to Texas when Abbey went missing, but went home again a few months later when the money ran out.

We don’t want to wait for an ambulance, so I help Abbey into the car while Thistle calls her mom. ‘We found Abbey. She’s alive. She’s with us.’

I can hear crying down the other end of the line.

‘I’m putting her on, okay?’ Thistle says.

Abbey takes the phone with a skeletal hand. She’s wrapped in Thistle’s jacket, which makes her look tiny, even though I know she’s nineteen. Dehydrated, but the tears start anyway. ‘I’m here, Mom. I’m okay.’

Thistle starts driving us to the Texas Women’s Hospital, which isn’t far from the field office. I can’t hear what Abbey’s mother is saying, but she sounds angry, like any parent who’s been worried sick.

‘Hey,’ Thistle says. ‘You all right?’

It takes me a second to realise I’m the one she’s talking to. Thistle doesn’t know everything I’ve done, but she knows everything that’s been done to me. As a kid and as an adult.

I look out the window. ‘Fine.’

After a second, she squeezes my hand. I let her.

‘You did good,’ she says.

‘Not who I expected to find,’ I say.