Back to the beginning…

It was the only thing left.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sawyer sighed as he closed the interrogation room door behind him with a soft click. His fist bunched at his side, but at least he hadn’t let it loose. A mild improvement. He was on thin ice as it was. After what had happened back in Oakland, punching a suspect would be the last straw.

Still, Mr. Campos hadn’t made it easy. If anyone deserved a good walloping, it was that man.

Not that he’d admitted to anything. And not that Sawyer was convinced he was involved in this kidnapping. But that was a vicious man if ever he’d seen one. Not just the assault charge. But something about that sickly look in the man’s eyes. Something deep as soul.

Sawyer paused, crossing himself and offering a little prayer up. He didn’t consider himself a religious man. Though others might. Sometimes he simply enjoyed how the gesture offended some. Anything to raise the hackles. But other times, he found it soothing, comforting and true. He found strength hidden there too, in surprising ways.

Maybe the doc would have a thought or two about it.

Not that he’d ever speak on it with her.

Even then, as he turned back toward the break room, feeling a flicker of frustration at the sealed interrogation room door and the equally sealed lips of his suspect, he blinked in surprise at the woman stalking toward him across the hall from the sliding glass doors.

Sawyer paused, pulling up and coming to a standstill as Dr. Ilse Beck strode toward him. She still wore the oversized, unflattering baggy sweater and sweatpants, as if she didn’t want to attract the least bit of attention. She didn’t wear makeup, though she was pretty in an understated way. Now, though, she was frowning, and one hand brushed nervously at her hair over her right ear.

He hadn’t spotted it at first, but as she neared, beneath the light above, he noticed the thin trail of a scar along her chin, disappearing behind her low-hanging hair.

He sighed and waited, watching as she drew near.

“Agent Sawyer,” she said in greeting, her voice flustered, her movements hurried and urgent.

“Mhmm?”

“Get anywhere with the suspect? I suppose you probably aren’t allowed to tell me. But I just wanted to say I think—”

“Lawyered up. How can I help you, Doc?”

“I was thinking,” she said, quietly. “Remembering a conversation I had with my client, with Samantha. Not one of our sessions. It didn’t come to mind right away. It was on the phone. She was scared.”

“Hmm?”

“Hmm indeed. Yes. Look, I know it’s a long shot. But I remember now; but Samantha was sure she was being re-targeted by an old threat. By the man who’d kidnapped her when she was only a child. Nearly twenty years ago.”

He watched her, nodding once for her to continue.

She sighed in mild frustration, but pressed on regardless. “Look, I remember something she said. That little window I mentioned. The one she said she would watch the red truck from? She also saw something else. She described the place where she was abused. Where she barely escaped.”