Chapter Three

THE HOSPITAL IS A GRAYcube with vertical slits for windows. When Chelsey arrives, the parking lot is littered with news vans. She wonders who tipped them off. It could have been the hikers who found Ellie. Maybe someone at the hospital. Or even at the precinct. She remembers how the media treated her sister's disappearance. Like a perverse form of entertainment. A bad taste in her mouth, Chelsey keeps her head angled down as she cuts through the glossy-haired reporters and bright lights.

In the emergency room, she flashes her badge to a security guard and then to the front desk attendant. A woman with a heart-shaped face leans against a wall outside the girl's room. She straightens as Chelsey approaches.

"Denise." Chelsey gives a curt nod. "I wish I could say it's nice to see you…"

"But we only see each other when something bad has happened," Denise fills in. "I figured you'd show up soon. Thought I'd wait for you. Brought you a coffee." Denise holds two cups. Her bangs are cut straight across, and she wears Doc Martens adorned with tiny skulls. A badge hangs from her neck: THURSTON COUNTY, PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT.

"Thanks." Chelsey sips, cup warming her hands. The coffee is tepid and strong. "Anybody in there with her?" She nods at the closed door, noting how dark it is inside, quiet as a tomb. A couple of uniforms are posted at each end of the hallway. A flutter of excitement beats against Chelsey's throat.

"Nope. Elizabeth is alone," Denise responds. "I spoke with the admitting doctor. She's pretty shaken up. Light sensitivity, clear signs of abuse. Hart is on her way." Hart is the county's sexual assault nurse examiner. "Elizabeth hasn't said much except to say her name and ask for her parents."

"They're coming." A siren wails in the background.

"You want to wait for them?" Denise asks.

Chelsey shakes her head. "Elizabeth is over eighteen." Near twenty years old, above the age that she'd need parental consent. "You take the lead?" Chelsey will watch for now. Most assume Chelsey is suited for working with victims because she is a woman. But she is not. She is gruff and distant. You're just like your dad, her mom, Marianne, said, the words half accusation, half reprimand. A phantom fist squeezes at Chelsey's heart. Chelsey has spoken to her mother twice in the same number of years. Once to tell Marianne that Chelsey's father, her ex-husband, had died. And then again shortly after to announce she'd married Noah.

"I'll take the lead," Denise confirms. She drops her coffee cup into a trash can. Chelsey takes one last sip and then discards her cup, too. Denise straightens her shirt, inhales visibly, and knocks twice on Ellie's door before inching it open. "Elizabeth?" she calls carefully into the dark. "I'm Denise Little, a victim advocate with Thurston County." She pushes the door open farther. A cone of light floods the room. The girl's eyes are sunken and hollow, fruit without pits, and her hair is matted and crisp—a nest of tangled wires. A shock of recognition runs through Chelsey. Unmistakable. It's her, really her. Elizabeth Black is alive.

Ellie's empty gaze drifts to Chelsey. "Who are you?"

Words have fled Chelsey. She is mesmerized. Ellie Black in the flesh. It is a miracle, and Chelsey wants to weep but does not allow herself to. She wills the tears away until the sensation is a dull ache in her jaw.

Denise glances back at Chelsey. "That's Detective Calhoun. She's the primary on your case."

"Primary?" Ellie's voice is hoarse.

Chelsey closes the door. The room stinks of campfire, sanitizer, and vomit. It's not the worst thing Chelsey has ever smelled. "I work in Pacific County. I'm the lead detective on your case," she says, placid.

Denise smiles. "May I sit?" She drags a chair over and eases into it. "It's nice to see you, Elizabeth. We've been looking for you for a long time."

"Yeah? How long?" Ellie moves gingerly, limbs poking like shards of glass under the hospital sheet. She's thin. Starved, maybe. Her fingers are so filthy they've left marks on the bedding. The clothing she was found in is crumpled at the base of the bed. It is dirty, rust-colored, and wet with mud. Old blood, but new dirt. Chelsey files away this information. It's a puzzle piece, one of many, that she'll turn in her hands, seeking the right fit.

Denise purses her lips. "Well, I don't know the exact details of your case. My role is to support victims of crimes." Ellie doesn't blink. She does not flinch. "But I believe you have been gone for about two years."

Chelsey jams her hands into her pockets and settles against the wall. Seven hundred and forty-six days, to be exact. A lot can happen in that time. Cells divide millions of times over, and it's a miracle, a baby. Another cell divides abnormally, turning a person's insides black, robbing them of life, like Chelsey's father. In seven hundred and forty-six days, the Earth does two complete rotations around the sun, and Ellie Black disappears and reappears like a magic trick. Now you see her, now you don't.

Denise leans a little closer to Ellie. "We have a lot to talk about, Elizabeth. And I am here to offer support. But before we chat, we'd like to have someone examine you. Is it okay if we have a SANE nurse come in and do that?"

"SANE?" Ellie picks at her cuticles. Shiny scars track up her arm where the skin has peeled away. A type of burn, Chelsey surmises. Other than a couple of scraped-knee scars, Kat never mentioned Ellie had any others.

"A sexual assault nurse examiner," Denise clarifies.

Ellie stiffens. "Is that necessary?"

"I understand how uncomfortable it may seem, but time is crucial. This will help with the investigation."

Ellie turns away, jaw locked. "I just want my parents."

"They're on their way," Chelsey says. "But it will take some time."

"Why?" Ellie punches out.

Denise looks heavily at Ellie. "Elizabeth, do you know where you are?"

"At the hospital," Ellie says.

"No, do you know where you are geographically? What city you're in? You're in Olympia, Washington. Two hours outside of Coldwell Beach and Astoria, where you disappeared."

"Olympia," Ellie says to herself while touching her left wrist, an absentminded motion. Is she feeling for the ghost of something? Cuffs? Rope? There are no marks. But Chelsey catalogs it.

"Yes, Olympia." Denise waits a minute or two, content to give Ellie time before pressing her. "Now, how about that exam? Will you consent?"

Ellie hesitates. "They'll stop if I ask them to?"

Denise's nod is decisive, the chop of a knife. Chelsey has seen Denise halt exams. That's it. No more right now. Everybody out. "Yes. Anytime during the exam, you may put a stop to it. I will be present, and a nurse can give you a calming medication beforehand."

"No," Ellie jumps in. "No drugs."

"All right. No drugs," Denise promises. She turns to Chelsey. "Anything else?"

Chelsey shakes her head. "No." She keeps her voice gentle even though her insides are hot, boiling with questions. Chelsey has always been a little impatient when she wants something. She's the first to eat the whole cookie, to wake up at Christmas, to grow agitated in the grocery line when the checker is too slow. When it comes to solving cases, impatience has served her well. She recognizes the cost of time. How much you can lose in a minute. Still. Still. She cautions herself to go slow. Ellie is not a suspect. Ellie needs a day to rest. Time to tend to the slashes in her psyche. She moves in closer, softening her tone a degree more. "I'm just… I'm sorry this happened to you."

Ellie is silent, sitting with Chelsey's statement. Absorbing it. Recognizing the shell shock, as if surviving a flood or bomb. This sacred truth, that something terrible has been done. "Thank you." Ellie touches her left wrist again.

Chelsey nods once, a faint smile on her lips, and leaves. Outside Ellie's room, Chelsey checks her phone. Two calls from Sergeant Abbott and one from Doug, followed by a text from him: AT THE TRAIL.

She calls Doug back first.

"Is it her?" he answers.

Hearing Doug's voice, Chelsey's younger self rushes up, and she feels small. Spiteful. She waits a beat, gathers herself. "It's her." She sees Hart, the SANE nurse, pushing a covered metal cart down the hall, giving her a wave as she passes.

"Ho-lee shit," Doug drags out.

Chelsey stares at her shoes, worn boots with frayed laces. A lump rises in her throat. She mentally chastises herself for being too emotional. She hears her father's voice. Get it together. If you're going to be an officer, you'll have to be better than a woman. She forces herself back to attention. "I'm going to stick around here through the medical exam and until Kat and Jim arrive. How are things at the trail?"

"Weather report calls for rain in the next couple hours, visibility is shit," Doug says. "These trails are like spiderwebs. She could have come from eight different directions, and they're all well-traveled—lots of footprints. There are a couple K-9s on the way. Hopefully, we'll be able to get a scent before it's washed out."

Chelsey thinks about how Ellie smelled like vomit and campfire. "I want you to keep looking. Search for any sign of encampments, anywhere someone could have made a fire or dwelling." Through the metal slats of the blinds in the hospital window, Chelsey sees Ellie in the bed, Denise beside her. Nurse Hart is there, too. Smiling, touching Ellie's knee with a latex-gloved hand. Then she reaches for the clothing at the end of the bed and seals it in a plastic bag with CHAIN OF CUSTODY written on the front. Chelsey feels a sick drop in her belly.

"All right," Doug says. "What do you think happened to her?"

"I don't know. There's evidence of long-term abuse and neglect." Nurse Hart reaches up and pulls the curtain closed, cutting off Chelsey's view. Chelsey knows what will come next. Ellie's nails will be clipped. Her teeth flossed. Mouth swabbed. All of it placed in little tubes. Ellie Black is a piece of evidence now. Her body will be on trial. "She was too shaken up to talk much."

"That's to be expected."

A series of flashes burst around the curtain. Photographs being taken of Ellie. Chelsey turns. It is one of the most difficult parts of her job, reviewing what has been done to a person, studying the carnage. The depravity. But someone has to look. Someone has to bear witness. "I think she escaped from somewhere."

"Makes sense."

Chelsey blinks, scanning her memory of Ellie in the hospital bed, her body. No deep lacerations on her hands or feet aside from minor superficial cuts, no physical evidence she jumped from a moving vehicle. "Probably on foot." That is why she is good at her job. She notices details. She can read people. Had perfected the art of observation during her childhood, carefully watching her father's moods.

"Got it. What's the perimeter?"

Good question. Chelsey squints up at the fluorescent hospital lights. How far can a person travel if they're running for their life? Chelsey recalls overhearing a fellow detective talk about a case he worked on in Idaho. A girl chained in the basement of her parents' home escaped and walked through her neighborhood, down the freeway, and into the next town before stopping and asking for help. "Make it fifteen miles."

They hang up, and Chelsey's brain spins and spins. A frenetic whirlwind of the same questions that have plagued her for the last two years. What happened to you, Ellie Black? Where'd you go?