JAKE

"She escaped."

The words hung in the air like thick smoke, suffocating the air out of my lungs.

Ashford said them again, slower this time, as if repetition might make them less true. "She fucking escaped, Jake."

For a moment, the information refused to land. It bounced off the office walls, off the blinds half-drawn against the morning glare, off the stack of unsolved case files on the conference table between them. My mind refused to compute it.

"Say that again," I said.

Ashford pinched the bridge of his nose. "Emma Lawrence escaped from Danbury around two-thirty this morning."

No. Not possible.

He dropped a folder onto the table. I didn't open it yet. I couldn't.

"The escape was messy," Ashford went on, his voice rough, perhaps from the long call he'd just had with the people in D.C. after the news broke.

My mind drifted into the chaos they were probably trying to contain, the scandal spiraling up the chain of command. Anything to avoid the truth pressing at the edges of my thoughts, that somewhere, right now, there was a prison cell missing Emma's presence.

But then I registered what Ashford had just said. "Messy how?" I asked, the question catching in my throat as my heart skipped a beat.

He sighed. "The infirmary nurse diagnosed her with appendicitis late last night. Said Lawrence had all the symptoms—nausea, abdominal tenderness, elevated heart rate. So she called for an emergency appendectomy. The warden approved the transfer himself. It was supposed to be a routine procedure, nothing suspicious."

I sat across from him and opened the folder, my mind already racing through every possible way this could have gone wrong.

Ashford continued. "She was accompanied by three COs in total. Two escorts and a driver, all armed. They left the gate at 2:07 a.m. and never made it to the hospital."

I stopped skimming the report and looked up at him. "What happened?"

He met my eyes. "The van was intercepted about four miles out. An SUV cut them off on the road. Masked men got out, armed and organized. The driver, Officer Collins, stepped out with his weapon drawn. He was shot immediately. The other two COs..." He glanced down at the file. "Harlan and Rodriguez said they didn't even have time to react."

Ashford's jaw tightened. "The attackers ordered them to unshackle Lawrence and walk away if they wanted to live. They complied."

"And she just went with them?"

"That's what they said." His voice dropped. "She knew them, Jake. Or at least, they seemed to think she did."

My hands tightened around the folder until the pages crumpled between my fingers. I didn't read a word; the lines were swimming anyway. I drew in a slow breath, trying to steady the rhythm of my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

"Where are the COs now?" I finally asked.

"They're alive. They walked away with minor injuries and shock. The prison's medical unit is treating them on-site."

"And the nurse?"

"Questioned. She says Lawrence came in complaining of severe pain. She swears she saw clear signs of appendicitis." Ashford's mouth curved in disbelief. "She says she thought she was saving her life."

My gaze dropped back to the file, this time to the incident photos. The van was riddled with bullets, the asphalt streaked with a black trail of blood near the driver's door and along the stretch of road where it happened. The nurse's recommendation for the hospital transfer was there, and the warden's time-stamped approval right after it. Everything was by the book. Everything except her.

She escaped. She fucking escaped.

Maybe I really didn't know her at all. Maybe that letter was a lie, too. She wrote that she had never physically hurt anyone, that she drew the line there. But a CO was dead, and she was gone.

Anger surged beneath my skin, hot and heavy, like lava looking for a way out. I felt played all over again. The pressure built until it throbbed behind my eyes. I pushed back from the chair and walked to the window overlooking the city, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

"If she ran," I said, still facing the window, "I'll find her."

"I figured you'd say that," Ashford replied.

I turned to him. "Put me on it."

"You don't have to ask," he said. "This is bad, and we need to move fast. You know her better than anyone."

A laugh threatened to escape because I wasn't sure that was true anymore.

I turned back toward the table, looking down at the photo again. The van, the blood, the empty road, and the bitter taste that hit the back of my throat.

The conference room door opened, and Luke stepped in with a manila folder tucked under his arm. His tie was loose, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his expression sat somewhere between disbelief and exhaustion.

"I've got the written statements," he said, dropping another folder onto the table. "Guards and the nurse. And Eric Lawrence has been questioned already by the agents in Connecticut."

Ashford leaned forward, elbows on the table. "And?"

"They cleared him," Luke said. "There's no indication he was involved."

I grabbed the folder, not looking up as I said, "He's still our first lead. Have him brought in again here. I'll talk to him myself."

Ashford's phone buzzed before Luke could respond. Ashford stepped away, muttering something about the warden on the line, and left the room.

Luke lingered by the door for a second more, studying me the way partners do when they already know the answer but ask anyway. "You okay?"

I flipped another page. "Fine."

He didn't buy it. He sighed and dropped into the chair across from me. The leather creaked under his weight.

"You're not fine, but okay," he muttered, rubbing his jaw before flipping open one of the many files on the table. "Still, something here doesn't add up."

I finally looked at him.

"Emma's record has been spotless for a long time," he went on, tapping her inmate file. "She had no incidents or infractions in MCC, none in Danbury. She kept her head down, cooperated, and even volunteered in the library. Hell, she had a visitation scheduled with her brother the same day this happened. So why now? Why like this? And if Eric didn't help her, then who the hell did?"

I leaned back, arms crossed. "Maybe the visit was a cover so Eric could claim he didn't know. They'll probably reunite later once the smoke clears."

Luke's brow furrowed. "But here's the thing, I don't think Eric's planning to bolt. He's got a legit startup in the city—tech security or something. It's doing well. He's building a life, Jake. You think all that's a front?"

"Maybe." The word came out too fast. "Or maybe Emma just got tired of prison life. Maybe she decided she'd had enough."

Luke gave a short snort. "Come on, man. You don't believe that."

I didn't answer.

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You and I both know something's off. How'd she even fake appendicitis that convincingly? The nurse didn't run a single lab, just 'diagnosed' and signed off? And if she was sick, or dosed herself with something to fake the symptoms, then how did she pull it together enough to cooperate with the perpetrators like the COs claim? She's not Houdini. Someone must've coordinated this."

He looked at me, gray eyes searching. "How did she even communicate with them from inside? They found no hidden phones, no contraband, nothing in her cell after the escape."

I stared at the wall behind him, at the blinds cutting the light into neat little slivers.

I didn't answer because deep down, a part of me already knew.

My mind has been clinging to the theory that she planned it, that she had gone rogue, because it was the only version that didn't gut me completely. The alternative... that she was taken, hurt, or worse... that was something my mind couldn't carry.

A year. It had been over a year since that night in her apartment. Since her confession, the cuffs, and how she looked when I told her nothing mattered now. A year since everything I thought I knew about justice, about her, cracked open.

I should've moved on. Should've hated her, or at least stopped thinking about the way she smiled, like she was holding on to something fragile. Maybe back then, it was the safety she felt when we were together. Maybe it was the future she thought we had. Or maybe now that I know better, it was just her way of hiding both a secret and a wound.

But I hadn't stopped thinking about her. I had been keeping tabs quietly. Prison records, disciplinary reports, progress notes. Every month, like clockwork, I made sure she was okay. And she was.

She had been a model inmate, cooperative, grounded, and even helped other women adjust. There were no fights on her record, no write-ups, nothing.

So, what the hell had changed? Or was the whole thing an act?

Luke's voice broke through the noise in my head. "Jake?"

I blinked, trying to organize my scattered thoughts into something useful. "Maybe we should talk to the nurse ourselves."

He nodded slowly. "After Eric?"

"Yes. He's got to have something we can use."

As if on cue, my phone buzzed. I glanced at the message, then looked up at Luke. "They've got him in an interview room."

Luke straightened. "Already?"

"Already." I closed the file and stood. "Let's go."

The observation glass caught my reflection and split it in two; duty on one side, doubt on the other. Beyond it, Eric Lawrence sat slumped at the table, fingers rubbing at his temple like he was trying to press a migraine out of his skull.

The dark circles under his eyes told me plenty before I even stepped inside. His expression wasn't arrogance after a clean getaway, or defiance after being caught. It was exhaustion, and beneath it, something worse. Fear.

He didn't look like a man hiding something. He looked like someone who had been pacing the edge of panic, just waiting for someone to tell him his sister was still alive.

I let out a breath before stepping inside. The door closed behind me with a soft hydraulic hiss, sealing the room in its own uneasy silence.

Eric looked up but didn't speak. He clasped his hands on the table, his blue eyes steady on me, watching, assessing, like he wasn't sure if I was here as the FBI agent or the man who once sat across from his sister at a kitchen table and called it home.

"Coffee," I said, setting the paper cup I brought with me in front of him.

He looked at it without moving. Then, after a moment, he reached for the cup, wrapping his hands around it like he needed the heat more than the caffeine.

"They already grilled me," he said. "Your agents in Connecticut—twice. They showed up at my office, tore the place apart, checked my car, my phone. Then they dragged me back with them, and after hours of questions, decided I'm just as clueless as they are."

He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced at the taste. "So if this is another round of trying to scare me, go ahead. Charge me with whatever the hell you want. But if you've got something that actually leads to my sister, stop wasting time already."

I asked him about the last time he had seen her. He hesitated, then said she had looked fine. They had talked about his business, about life—normal things. He told me she had seemed grounded, steady. Said he knew her better than anyone, and she wasn't hiding anything.

I asked if she had looked sick. He said no.

When I suggested she might've faked the symptoms, and that she was a con artist, after all, he gave me a look that could've cut steel.

I leaned back. "So, your position is what, exactly? That Emma didn't escape?"

Eric scoffed. "Of course she didn't."

"A CO is dead," I said, because that was the fact we all had to live with. "Someone put a bullet in him on a dark road and walked away with your sister, who apparently went willingly. You still want me to believe she had nothing to do with it?"

He let out a bitter laugh that died almost instantly. "Of course she didn't. Jesus, Jake. You really think she'd be part of something like this?"

I kept my face still. "I thought I knew her," I said. "Guess I didn't."

He studied me for a long second, then shook his head slowly. "Sometimes you're too angry to see what's right in front of you," he said back, and there was no heat in it, only fact. "I get it. But that's not Emma. And I won't sugarcoat it; the truth is, if she wanted to run, she wouldn't have done it without me."

I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He let out a tired breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "It means she and I, we don't do life solo. If she was planning something, I'd have known." He hesitated then, his eyes dropping to the paper cup in his hands.

"She's been surviving in there, Jake. More than that, she was planning." His voice tightened. "She kept her head down, worked, stayed out of trouble. She was talking to me about an art program, like it was the one good thing she could still build with what she had left." He paused, swallowing hard. "She told me she was done running. She wanted to do it right this time. Serve her time. Get out. Rebuild."

Something shifted in my chest, uninvited, unwelcome. The room seemed smaller, the hum of the vent suddenly loud. For a moment, I could see her in that tan uniform, sketching on cheap paper, a half-smile tugging at her mouth as she pretended everything was fine.

I exhaled slowly. "Then why is she gone?"

"I don't know." His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. "But whatever happened last night, it wasn't her. You don't just rip your own scab off once it's finally started to heal. Not when it took you this long to stop bleeding."

The silence stretched. I wanted to believe him. God, part of me already did. But believing him meant accepting something I couldn't stomach, that Emma hadn't escaped at all. That she had been taken.

Eric took another sip, more for something to do with his hands than thirst. When he looked at me again, his voice was steady. "You want a theory? She was taken by someone who knew how to use your system against itself, and left you chasing the wrong story."

I didn't answer. Deep down, the same thought had already started taking shape beneath the noise in my head. Luke had said it—something didn't add up. The nurse's sudden diagnosis, even after Emma had looked fine with Eric just hours earlier. The spotless paperwork, every signature in place. The infirmary cameras wiped clean. One CO dead. Two others walking away untouched, even though the men they described didn't sound like the kind who left witnesses behind.

"Start treating her like a missing person, Jake," Eric said very quietly, as if he were holding himself together by a thread. "Not a fugitive."

The clock on the wall ticked. The vent hummed. A cart rattled down the corridor like a cheap drum and faded away.

I slid a bottle of water across the table; he looked like he needed it. I stopped feeling like an interrogator and started feeling like someone involved—like him.

"If she's out there," I said, "I'll find her. Whether she wants to be found or not."

Eric met my gaze and nodded. "Good," he said. "And find the bastard who took her, too."

Before I could respond, the door burst open. Luke stepped in, breath tight, eyes burning with something that wasn't relief.

"Jake." His gaze flicked to Eric, then back to me. "The infirmary nurse just arrived. You're going to want to hear this yourself."

Eric and I exchanged a look; two people who didn't trust each other, not even a little, but cared about the same person. And for the first time since I got the news, what rose in my chest wasn't anger or disbelief, it was pure, unfiltered fear. Fear that she was out there somewhere, hurt, alone, and running out of time.

"Let's go," I said.