“He won’t take medication,” Faith told Amanda. Will treated headaches with root beer and strained muscles with more exercise.

Amanda said, “I have a hunch that Robert Hurley didn’t abduct Michelle Spivey. I think a man named Adam Humphrey Carter took her. He spent six years upstate for sexual assault. And I think he’s with Sara right now.”

Faith put her hand to her mouth. Georgia distinguished the crime of rape from sexual assault. The latter meant that the assailant had supervisory or custodial authority over the victim; a teacher or a daycare worker or—

“Carter was a Newnan County police officer,” Amanda confirmed. “He pulled over a twenty-two-year-old woman, dragged her into the woods, raped and battered her, then left her for dead.”

“Where did—” Faith struggled to get out a question. “You didn’t pull Carter’s name out of a hat. Why do you think he’s involved?”

“There are things I can’t tell you right now. It’s a hunch, but it’s a well-informed hunch.” Amanda gave Faith a moment. “I’ve asked a friend to send the video of Spivey’s abduction to your private email.”

“Wait, there’s video?” Faith had been following the story over the last month. She’d thought it was just another horrible, random kidnapping. “The news said there were no suspects.”

Amanda didn’t explain the deception. “These are the pieces we need to focus on putting together right now: Is Carter the man in the Spivey abduction video? If Carter is the abductor, can Will identify him as one of the men who took Sara?”

The idea that Carter could have Sara made Faith feel sick. “And then?”

“Then they can’t argue that Michelle is being trafficked. You heard about the track marks. They could say that Carter finished with Michelle, then sold her on to Hurley. A transaction, not an alliance.”

The more she talked, the less clear things got. “Who’s ‘they’ who’re going to argue that? And why does it matter what the motivation is?” Faith felt her watch tapping her wrist. The haptic feedback was signaling that she had an alert. She glanced down, saying, “I guess cell service is—”

Sara Linton tried to reach you, but you were unavailable.

“Fuck.” Faith scrolled through the Walkie-Talkie options. “Sara—”

Talk With Sara.

Open Walkie-Talkie.

“Fuck.”

“Faith,” Amanda said. “For godsakes. Sara what?”

“She tried to Walkie me at 2:17. That was twenty-one minutes ago.” Sara could be on her way to Tennessee, the Carolinas, Alabama, Florida. “Fuck.”

“What did she say?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Faith started to explain that the app worked on the FaceTime platform, but then she remembered her audience. “It’s like a real walkie-talkie. It doesn’t record or store the message. You have to listen to it when it comes in.”

Amanda’s lips snapped into a tight line. She exhaled sharply, then said, “They found the BMW ten minutes ago.”

Faith’s jaw dropped.

“There was an explosion. The gas tank was set on fire. There’s a body in the back seat. They can’t tell if it’s male or female. The car has to cool down before they can go in.”

Faith reached behind her to find the wall. She needed something solid to keep her anchored. Sara wasn’t only Will’s girlfriend. She was Faith’s friend. Maybe even her best friend.

“You can’t tell Will any of this.” Amanda started down the stairs. “He can’t help us if he’s in mourning.”

Faith dragged behind her. She felt punch-drunk. Will had a right to know what was happening. Faith was his partner. Her job was to be honest with him. Or at least as honest as she could be.

Amanda pulled open another door. They were in the ER. She stopped the first worker she could find. “I need Conrad.”

Will was slouched on a gurney at the end of the hall. Faith ran toward him, calling, “Will.”

He blinked long and slow. “Did you find Sara?”

“No. The entire state is looking for her.” Faith told herself it was useless to tell him about the burned-out BMW until they knew who was inside. She gently pushed up his head so she could see his face. “Are you okay?”

His chin dropped back to his chest. “I let them steal her.”

She tried to make him look up, but he shook away her hand.

“It-it fast.” He said. “The shed. It— the street. But, before a-an explosion. And then the cars. They took her.”

Amanda had no patience for his rambling. “Why are you slumped over like a hobo?” She tried to force him to lie down. Her hand lifted his shirt.

“Jesus Christ,” Faith said. His skin looked like a bunch of jumbled Rorschach ink blots.

Amanda gave Faith a sharp look, telling her to pull herself together. “Faith, go find a doctor. Tell them he could be bleeding internally.”

Faith walked down the hallway. She used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. Grit scratched at her skin. It killed her to see Will this way. She turned around and watched Amanda holding out a pill for Will to take. He shook his head. She broke it in half and Will tossed it into his mouth.

“You need me again?” A male nurse stood with his hands gripped around his stethoscope. His name tag read CONRAD. He said, “Your boss is a bitch.”

“Tell her that while you’re helping my partner.” Faith pushed open the bathroom door. She went into the first stall, sat down, and put her head in her hands. She didn’t cry. She just sat there until she no longer had the desire to curl into a ball.

Adam Humphrey Carter.

Why did Amanda have the man’s name in her mouth? The abduction video was being sent to Faith’s private email to keep it out of official channels. Amanda called it a hunch, but she had to be working on a theory. Was this what she had been screaming into Maggie’s ear while they waited for the helicopter to land? It would explain why she’d been so visibly furious.

Not an escalation. An opportunity.

Faith checked her watch for notifications.

2:42 p.m.

Nothing.

She flushed the toilet. She washed her face. She looked at her wan reflection in the mirror.

She had to stop scanning the forest and look at the individual trees. Amanda said they needed to definitively connect Carter and Hurley as part of a team. If Will could identify them both from the accident site, then the connection would be proven. That was all Faith was going to worry about for now. Once the connection was made, she would move on to the next tree. It was the only way she was going to make it through the forest.

She pushed open the door. Down the hall, Amanda was struggling to help Will navigate the stairs. He was almost one hundred pounds heavier than she was, at least a foot taller. The sight would’ve been comical if it wasn’t so tragic.

Faith skirted around them, stepping backward down the stairs in front of Will in case he fell. His words slurred as he asked about Hurley, the GPS on Sara’s car.

“It’s all in motion,” Amanda soothed. “We’re relaying information as quickly as we can.”

“Through here.” Conrad stood at the open door.

Amanda tried to lead Will into the tunnel, but Will’s docility had finally run out.

He looked at Faith. “Is she dead?”

Her mouth opened, but Amanda spoke first.

“No. Absolutely not. If we knew something, we would tell you.”

Faith forced herself to look him in the eye. She told him the only truth she could muster. “I promise I would tell you if we knew where she was.”

He nodded, and she let them walk ahead of her so she wouldn’t give anything else away.

She looked down at her watch. She took out her cell phone. They were underground. There were no bars on either device. She would need to go upstairs or try to find the Wi-Fi login.

“Faith.” Amanda was alone in the hall, riffling through her purse. She held out her pill case. “I can’t find my reading glasses. Locate the oval, blue pills. I need two.”

“Are you—” Faith was going to ask if Amanda was sick, but she saw the tiny words on the blue tablet.

XANAX 1.0

“Put them in here.” Amanda uncapped a small plastic bottle. Faith dropped the pills in. Amanda started twisting the top like a pepper grinder. She saw Faith’s expression and said, “You can unclench your asshole. It’s not for Will. I need to loosen up Hurley, and before you lecture me, call your mother and ask her about her famous Blabbermouth pills.”

Faith chewed at the tip of her tongue. She hated when Amanda told her terrible things about her mother.

Amanda dropped the container in her suit jacket pocket. “Human rights are women’s rights. This is how we level the playing field.”

“Ma’am?” A man had appeared in the hallway. “I’m Dr. Schooner, the radiologist. He fell asleep on the table, so we thought we’d give him some time before the next patient comes down.”

He motioned them into a dark room filled with glowing screens. Conrad was in the chair with his arms crossed. There were signs taped to the walls. What to do if someone had an allergic reaction. The numbers for poison control. The Wi-Fi password.