She took the bag with her underwear out of her pocket, walked to the playground and tossed it into a garbage can. Then she got back into the car and continued to the police station.

She tried to focus, but her thoughts just whirled around in her head without creating a single complete idea. Everything was so incomprehensibly simple, but simultaneously so complicated.

Her body was shaking when she got out of the car in the parking ramp. Her car hadn’t warmed up yet, and she wasn’t dressed for the cold. Her fingers were red and stiff. She hurried across the floor, rubbing her palms against each other, back and forth, in an attempt to return warmth to her frozen hands.

She took the elevator up to her office and sat at her desk, wanting to distract her mind with work. She took out cotton swabs and gloves. Before pulling on the gloves, she looked at the ring on her finger, the inexpensive ring.

She had loved it.

Now she pulled it off, holding it between her pointer finger and thumb in front of her face.

She thought how much she still loved it.

Then she put it back on her finger, pulled on her gloves and began to work.

* * *

The girl blinked, her eyes wide against the light. Jana Berzelius lowered the flashlight.

“Isra?” she said again.

The girl whimpered and looked at her with big terrified eyes. She sat on a mattress with her hands bound with rope behind her back. She had tape loosely over her mouth and was chained fast to the wall. Next to her was a sink with no faucet. Her jacket was dirty, the blankets around her damp. Her dark hair stuck to her face.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jana said in English. “I’m going to make sure you get out of here. But I have to get help.” Then she went back to the stairs.

The girl began to whimper again and thrashed around in panic. She snorted and jerked, pulling at the ropes to get free. She began to scream in spite of the tape over her mouth, panic in her eyes.

“Listen to me,” Jana said, holding her hand over the girl’s mouth. “If the man who is keeping you here comes back and sees that you’re gone, he’ll disappear forever, and then we’ll never catch him. Then more girls like you will end up in the same place. You have to stay here for now, do you understand? I’ll be back.”

The girl nodded, the fear plain in her eyes.

“Nothing will happen to you now that we’ve found you,” Jana said. “But when I take my hand away, you have to be quiet. As quiet as you can. We don’t want him to hear us.”

She slowly took her hand away, stood up and looked at Isra, who was shaking with sobs.