Chapter 17
"Bus driver brought her in about three hours ago," the nurse said, leading them down the corridor at a pace that said she had other patients waiting. "Passengers on board spotted her first. She was stumbling along the road not far from Heaven Hill. Partially dressed. Incoherent. Heavily drugged."
Callie glanced at Noah. Heaven Hill. The same stretch where Brooke Danvers had been found. Noah's expression told her he was thinking the same thing but he kept quiet.
"Do you know what she was given?" Callie asked.
"Tox screen is still running. Based on her presentation, likely some form of inhalant sedative.
Chloroform or something similar. She's been in and out since arrival.
Lucid one moment, gone the next." The nurse stopped outside a room where a deputy sat in a chair with his hands on his knees, alert.
"She might not be able to answer all your questions.
But she's awake. I'd appreciate it if you kept it brief. "
Callie thanked her and pushed through into the room.
A television mounted on the wall played with the volume barely a whisper.
Drapes were half drawn, catching the last amber light of the afternoon through the gap.
Monitors beeped in a steady rhythm beside the bed where a young woman lay propped against pillows in a hospital gown, an IV line running from her left arm to a stand beside her.
Hailey Benton was twenty years old. Blonde hair matted and unwashed, fanned across the pillow.
Her face was pale, the skin beneath her eyes bruised in dark crescents that spoke of exhaustion and whatever chemicals were still working through her blood.
Her lips were chapped. Her collarbone was visible above the gown, the ridges too sharp, too defined.
She looked like someone who hadn't eaten properly in days.
She turned her head and watched them enter.
"Hello, Hailey. I'm Deputy Thorne from the Adirondack County Sheriff's Office, and this is Investigator Sutherland from State Police." Callie kept her voice low. "How are you feeling?"
"Nauseated."
"I expect that's from whatever was in your system, plus what they've given you here.
" Callie pulled a chair to the bedside and sat.
Noah moved to the window and leaned against the sill, keeping his distance.
They'd agreed in the corridor that Callie would lead.
Less threatening. It was just one woman talking to another about what she had endured.
"What do you remember?"
Hailey stared at the ceiling. Her fingers picked at the edge of the blanket in slow repetitive movements that seemed to help her think. "Not much. It's fragmented."
"I spoke with your parents on the phone. They told me you were on your way back to college. SUNY Plattsburgh. Is that right?"
"Yeah. I was visiting my parents for the weekend. I remember my vehicle having issues. It just stuttered and died on me. I got out and tried to make a call but I couldn't get any reception."
"Route 73?" Callie asked.
"I believe so."
"Did you fill up at a gas station before you left?"
"I think."
"Do you know which one?"
"I'm not sure."
"Go on." Callie wrote in her notebook.
"A vehicle came along and offered me a ride."
"Male or female?"
"Male."
"What made you get in?"
"He was a driver for a rideshare company.
On his way back to High Peaks. I know it was stupid, but we weren't far.
He seemed kind." A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it with the back of her hand. It wasn’t sadness.
Maybe embarrassment. The shame of a young woman replaying the moment she trusted someone she shouldn't have.
Callie placed a hand over hers. "Keep going."
"I got in the back and we pulled away. He was talking to me.
Normal questions. Where I was heading, what I was studying.
And then I noticed him fumbling with something on his face, like he was pulling up a medical mask.
And there was this sweet smell. Like gas.
Coming from the cupholders in the center console.
I asked him what it was." Her breathing quickened.
"I started feeling tingling in my body. My arms went limp. And then I passed out."
"What else do you remember next?”
"Fragments. Movement. Sound. Talking. A woman's voice.
The world shifting around me. Being carried into some room.
" She swallowed. "A mattress. When I came to, I was in this place.
Just a bed and a pot to piss in. There was a door.
I still felt awful. I threw up. I banged on the door.
That's when I heard another girl's voice.
She told me to be quiet. That if I didn't, he would come back. "
"You think there were more girls there?"
"I assume."
Noah stepped forward from the window and held out his phone. A photograph of Brooke Danvers on the screen. "Did you see this girl?”
"No. I only heard a voice. She told me her name was... Bran. Bro..."
"Brooke Danvers," Callie offered. "Does that sound familiar?"
Hailey nodded slowly. "That was it. She was there. She told me she was going to help me escape. That she'd found a way to get out of there. But I don't remember much. Only that she mentioned a window of opportunity when they brought food."
"They?"
“I think there was more than one. I heard a woman too."
"Did you see them before you escaped?"
"A couple of times. But each time I would smell that sweet smell first, and they would come in and everything went blurry.
" Her voice dropped. The monitors beeped.
Outside the window the sky was turning toward dusk.
"He had soft hands. When he touched me his hands were soft.
And his voice was gentle. Calm. Like he was trying to make me feel safe while he was doing something terrible.
He would hold me down but not rough. Almost careful.
He'd tell me to relax. That I was there for a purpose.
That if I did what I was told, they would let me go. "
She closed her eyes. Tears ran down both cheeks and her chest began hitching, shallow rapid breaths that the monitor picked up as an elevated heart rate.
"But they didn't. They didn't let me go."
Callie leaned forward and placed both hands on Hailey's. "Breathe with me. In through your nose. Slowly. Out through your mouth." She counted with her, four in, four out, until the hitching eased and the monitor settled into a steadier rhythm.
When Hailey's breathing was under control, Callie spoke again. "Do you remember how you got out? Anything about the place you escaped from? Was it a farm? A building?"
"I don't remember. It was night. I hid in the woods for hours. I thought they would find me. I just kept moving."
"But how? If they were drugging you?"
Hailey's face went blank. She couldn't answer that. The gap between the sedation and the escape was a void she couldn't fill, and pressing on it only pushed her further from the edges of what she could reach.
Noah pulled a series of photographs from his jacket and spread them on the blanket before her. Men's faces. Community members they'd brought in during the raid, booking photos, license images. Derek Hollis was among them, third from the left.
"Were any of these men the driver?"
Hailey scanned them. Her eyes moved across the row and her brow tightened but nothing registered. "I don't know. It was dark. I couldn't see much."
"You said he looked kind."
"I meant he sounded kind."
"No, you said he looked kind." Noah's voice was steady but there was weight behind it now. "You said he was from a ridesharing company. Try again."
"I don't know. Everything is so..."
"What was the rideshare name?"
Her face crumbled. Tears came again, harder this time, her shoulders shaking against the pillow. Callie looked at Noah and held his gaze until he felt it.
"Noah."
"Look again," he pressed one final time. "You said he looked kind. You must have seen his face."
"I did. I just... can't remember."
The nurse stepped in, reading the situation in a single glance. The crying patient. The detective standing too close. The photographs spread across the bedding.
"I think you all should go now. Give her some space."
Callie nodded and rose from the chair. Noah gathered the photographs and stepped back. They left the room without speaking, the deputy watching them pass.
Callie waited until they were halfway down the corridor before she let it go.
"What the hell was that back there?"
Noah kept walking. "Sometimes you have to push them."
"She's traumatized."
"And she saw him, Callie."
"If that's the case, maybe she'll get her memory back and tell us when she's ready. But you push like that, single out Derek Hollis in those photos, and anything she gives us might not hold up in court. Her statement will be worthless."
There was a beat. Noah stopped walking. They stood under the fluorescent lights with a cart of clean linens parked against the wall beside them and a nurse passing without looking up.
"Let's get a sketch artist in," Noah said. "Work with what she can describe. Go from there."
"You really think she's going to give us anything we can use? She barely remembers what happened. It's fragments."
"And like you said, maybe she'll get her memory back."
"She may not tell us even if she does. She looked directly at those photos. The best we can hope for is she's connected somehow to the Three Pillar Community or the Strutz Agency."
"You heard her. She was on her way back to college. No mention of modeling."
"Fiona didn't tell her father."
"So we ask her again when she's had time to breathe. For now we get the sketch artist in and see if it matches Derek Hollis."
"She had his photo right in front of her."
"Among others. It's not the first time a witness has been too shaken to identify someone they've seen."