The detective was right; she didn’t want to replay this. But then Katelyn’s terrified face flashed in her mind, and she knew she had to. She spoke slowly, telling her nightmare, sobs shaking her as she told the detective about the men, the whips, the clips. The pain. The degradation. The desire to die. Losing the will to live. She turned away, embarrassed and ashamed that Nick had to hear of her humiliation, but she knew she couldn’t bear to have him leave her side, either. Tears trickled down the side of her face, splashing onto the fist that clutched the sheet tightly under her chin.

A smooth hand touched hers. ‘Rachel, I want to remind you that you’re in a safe place right now, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You need to remember that none of this is your fault. Nothing you did caused this.’ Rachel listened to Detective Wyatt’s kind voice, trying to believe her.

‘Rachel, can you look at me?’ Reluctantly, Rachel moved her gaze back to Alyssa, careful to avoid eye contact with her brother. ‘Are you ready to continue, or do you need a few minutes?’

Inside, she shouted, I just want it all to go away, to never have happened at all. ‘I can continue.’

‘Did you know Meghan Jessup?’ the detective asked.

‘Briefly. She disappeared shortly after I got there. Did you find her? Is she okay?’

When the detective flipped her phone around to show her a picture of a man, Rachel knew Meghan hadn’t survived, and her stomach spasmed.

‘Is this one of the men you saw at that house?’

Rachel studied the picture for several minutes, though it really wasn’t necessary. She’d never be able to get them out of her head. Finally, she shook her head. ‘No, I never saw him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

She tapped on her screen and pulled up another image before turning her phone toward Rachel once more. ‘What about her? Do you recognize this woman?’

Staring back at her from the detective’s phone was the lady who’d dispassionately stood in the doorway after the very first time Rachel had been violated, the woman they’d all believed to be in charge because everyone obeyed her commands. The memory of the pain and degradation was so real, so intense that, before she knew what was happening, she was retching, barely conscious of her brother moving to hold her hair back as the detective placed a bucket beneath her mouth.

After her stomach was empty, dry heaves took over, and then finally, blessedly, it was over, and she allowed Nick to ease her back onto the pillow as she cried.

‘I’m so sorry, Rachel. I’m going to let you get some rest now, and I’ll be back later today, if that’s okay.’

Something was different in the detective’s voice, and Rachel turned her head toward her, surprised to see such pain in her face, the kind her own mother should have had.

‘None of us knew the woman’s name; no one ever spoke it out loud, at least not around us. But we always believed she was in charge because everyone followed her commands and deferred to her.’