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“What I hear?” Her brows creased at the question.

“When they're moving around upstairs. Scraping of chairs? Do you hear them driving a lot? Do you hear the weather? Do you hear the ocean?”

“Yes,” she said. She looked relieved that she could give me any kind of information, which made my heart ache. “I do hear the ocean. That is to say…I hear seagulls.”

“Good, Andrea,” I said, squinting a little at the pain in my head. “Very good. Now, what about the kidnappers? Have they ever spoken to you in English?”

She looked so much better at this point than when she first appeared, that when her tired and gaunt face turned into a mask of horror it physically pained me to see it. She turned around, evidently saw someone and disappeared.

“Oh shit, Maggie,” Tegan said, both hands in front of her mouth, eyes wide. "That poor woman.”

I nodded in silent agreement. That was supposed to be me.

“She looks horrible,” Tegan continued and her voice shook as she spoke. “They must be treating her badly.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, I believe they are. Oh God, I fucked up. Thomás shouldn't have been killed. If he was alive, I could have made him tell me, I could have gone with him. That was what I was doing anyway,” I said. I was so tired of this.

“Don't you dare blame yourself,” Tegan said, the shock of seeing Andrea like that completely erased now as she looked at me, her face hard, her voice as well. “This is not your fault. That guy was insane and dangerous to a fault. He would have hurt you. He would have trapped you. You know that. How could you have helped Andrea anyway if you had been trapped like that inside your own body? What he could do was awful. The fact that he did it was worse.”

I knew she was trying to comfort me, and maybe, on any other day it would have worked, but not now. Not after seeing how they treated Andrea. She was terrified, fatigue written all over her, and here I sat complaining about being exhausted and beaten? That was nothing compared to what had happened—washappening—to her. She was tough considering what was going on, but she lived a normal life. She wasn’t prepared for things like this. I knew in my gut I would have fared better than her if it had been me. Which is why it should have been me.

“Listen,” I said, shoving thoughts like that away. “I need to try and figure out where they're keeping her.”

“Didn't you say you tried to read Thomás' mind?”

“Yes, but it all happened so fast. It was all jumbled. And then he tried to trap me, and I barely remember anything after that. It's all a freaking chaos in my head.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to make you some food because you need some, you look like it. And we're going to go through this step by step together, so you can remember exactly what was in his head. Do you hear me?”

I simply nodded. This was Nurse Tegan talking, stern and strict, knowing exactly what was needed. There was no point in arguing because this time she was right. All that was left now, was what I had gleaned from Thomás, and as far as I could remember, that was not a lot. I sat back up as Tegan removed the latex gloves she'd forgotten about until now. She packed up her equipment in silence, as I tried to think back on the accident when I heard a knock on the door.

“Oh, God damn it, that's probably Withers again with his stupid missing cat,” Tegan snarled as she went to the door and opened it. Her anger soon turned to restrained politeness as a familiar voice for some reason lifted my spirits a little.

Seven

“Mr. Withers,I don’t know where your cat is,” Ms. Byers said as she swung the door open. Apparently, her neighbor had been on her about the animal again. She gave a puzzled look when she noticed I was not the old man next door and simply said, “Oh.” I heard Mr. Withers close his door somewhere behind me. He was curious but didn’t want to suffer this woman’s wrath.

“I remember you,” she said to me, her brows creasing a bit, trying to recollect where she had seen me. “Detective McAlley, was it?”

“McAllen,” I corrected her, “though that’s my partner. I’m Detective Hansen.”

“Okay. What can I help you with, Detective?” she asked, looking like she wanted to shut the door in my face. Preferably with it hitting me square on the nose. Not like everybody in the world likes cops. You get used to it. But I was beginning to recognize this particular dislike. “If it’s about that damn cat again, I have no idea where it is.”

I smiled wide to annoy her. “Who, Misty? She’s fine. She’s home with Mr. Withers now.”

“Then wha—”

“Oh, just let him in,” came Evans’ voice from somewhere to the right inside the apartment.

I’d been right. It made perfect sense. Ms. Byers was even a nurse, if I remembered the information she’d given us correctly. It was obvious this was where Evans would go in a crisis.

“What? Why?” Ms. Byers asked as she looked to her left, not even trying to sound polite now.

“Just do it, Tegan,” Evans said. She sounded tired and not willing to argue. That was weird. “He’s been working on the same case.”

Ms. Byers looked at me with unhidden skepticism, but stepped aside and let me in. Her apartment did not reflect her personal style, though that was toned down at the moment. I looked to the right and saw Evans dragging herself up from the kitchen counter, trying to sit up properly on a high counter stool. She didn’t seem hurt. Fatigue, maybe?

“How the hell did you find me?” she asked, sounding like her usual pleasant self now.

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