Even as Ilse played it out, she knew the clock was ticking. Time was running out. Samantha was out there somewhere, in horrible danger. She pictured the young woman’s slumped shoulders, bowed head. As if the weight of the world, like Atlas, had fallen on her back to bear, with no one to help. The late-night phone calls, clear cries for help. The desperate, wide-eyed, nostril-flaring panic. Fear at its root.

Ilse opened her eyes, exhaling shakily, feeling a lance of guilt, of fear herself.

But then, softly, quietly, her voice like the mist so often over the lake behind her house, she said, “She mentioned… At one point, during a session, she mentioned…” Ilse paused—would this be appropriate to share? It had to be. She pushed on. “She mentioned she would sometimes watch out the tiny window in the shed where she was kept, looking for her tormentor’s old red truck.” Ilse shivered, a flash of her own memory. A dark basement, not a shed. The sound of tires—not from a truck, but still, similar enough.

Ilse sighed shakily, pushing aside the distracting memories. Her own thoughts, her own pain wouldn’t help her. No, this was about Samantha.

Ilse delved back into the cataloged memories, the recollections of her sessions. She nodded slowly, doubling down on the words. “A truck, a red truck,” she said. “That’s what she said he drove. Nearly twenty years ago now… but still…” She trailed off, eyes open again, looking at Sawyer. She winced. “That’s all I remember. She…” Ilse’s voice cracked. “She said it would fill her with dread when she saw that truck coming down the road.”

Sawyer watched her, not quite frowning, but not smiling either. His posture guarded, arms crossed, legs braced. His shoulder pressed against the cold surface of the vending machine. For a moment, his eyes flicked down toward where Ilse’s hand still hovered over the table, mid-motion where she’d playacting the movement of opening an imaginary door.

With a delicate cough, Ilse quickly lowered her hand to the table, laying it flat.

“Red truck?” he said, his tongue circling the inside of his cheek again.

“That’s what she said.”

“She say anything else about this man?”

Ilse winced. “We were still working on that. It was hard for her to remember.”

“Twenty years is a long time.”

“People like their trucks,” Ilse said, shrugging.

“It’s a long shot.”

“I’m sorry. Really, it’s all I can remember.”

Sawyer glanced at her hand again, and then he frowned. “You sure? Don’t need to check your notes or anything.”

Ilse didn’t blink. She was used to people being skeptical about the memory devices Dr. Mitchell had taught her. But she knew they worked. They always had. It was one of the reasons clients often referred others to her. They felt known, remembered. Something so small as recollecting the name of someone’s grandfather, or the color of their favorite pet. Paying attention to what others valued, and holding onto that information, helped open more doors than any amount of training she’d received.