“Emily, we have a crisis counselor on the way. We also have a medical team ready to document your injuries if you’re willing.”
“I’m willing.”
“Good. We’ll do that tonight if you’re up for it. Tomorrow, we’ll need a full statement. Everything you can remember. Dates, locations, witnesses, texts, emails. Anything that can help us build the case.”
“Will it be enough?” Emily asked.
“For what?”
“To keep him away.”
Officer Mendez crouched down so they were eye to eye.
“Yes,” she said. “It will be enough.”
Emily nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.
“He’s smart,” she said. “He knows how to talk to people. He’ll say I’m lying. He’ll say I’m unstable. He’ll—”
“We found three other women,” Officer Mendez said quietly.
Emily stopped breathing.
“We’ve been building a case against Caleb Torres for six weeks,” Officer Mendez continued. “We had reports. We had suspicions. We didn’t have enough to move until you called today.”
“Three others?”
“Three we know of. Two are willing to testify. One’s still too scared. But Emily, with your statement, with the evidence we collected tonight, with the weapon and the witnesses—” She paused. “He’s not walking away from this.”
Emily’s face did something complicated.
Relief. Guilt. Grief.
“They’re alive?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“He didn’t—”
“No. You’re all alive.”
Emily covered her face with both hands and cried so hard her whole body shook.
I held her.
Diane held her.
Thomas stood and paced and finally sat down on the arm of the couch and just put his hand on Emily’s shoulder.
Solid.
There.
The crisis counselor arrived twenty minutes later. Her name was Angela, and she had soft eyes and a voice that didn’t push.
She sat with Emily for an hour while the rest of us waited in the kitchen.
I made tea no one drank.
