Still nothing.
Then the psychiatrist tried something else. She held out her hand. “I’m just going to take your hand for a moment. That’s all. You’re safe.”
Her fingers touched the woman’s, carefully, slowly, and for a second, Alex thought there might be something. A shift. A tremor.
But the woman didn’t move. Her hand stayed limp. Eyes blank. Her body was there, but whatever made her herself was gone.
Alex’s throat tightened. He looked down at his notebook, at the empty page. Wrote one word: Wiped.
Whoever did this hadn’t needed force. They’d used silence. Isolation. Time. They’d dismantled her, piece by piece, until nothing was left.
He sat there for a long time, watching. And for the first time since Charlotte left, the fear shifted into something else. Rage. Cold, steady, building under the surface. Whoever had done this wasn’t finished.
And if they were coming for Charlotte next—if they thought they could take her mind the same way they’d hollowed out this woman—Alex would burn everything in his path to stop them.
He stayed frozen in the observation room, watching through the glass, barely breathing.
The psychiatrist kept her voice gentle, rhythmic. Her words weren’t meant to extract—they were meant to reach. But there was nothing behind the woman’s eyes. No tension. No pain. No fear. Nothing. And that was worse.
Tristan stepped quietly beside him, holding a chart. “Whoever kept her off the radar knew what they were doing.”
Alex didn’t answer. His fingers curled around the pen, his notebook still open on his lap, the word Wiped underlined three times now.
“Henry Byron and now her. I requested the information on Ward’s survivors. I’d like to see if the patterns match up.”
Alex nodded once. “You think Ward had help.”
“I don’t think he ever worked alone,” Tristan said. “I think someone kept his methods alive after he was locked up. Or maybe he handed them off to someone who wanted to continue the cycle.”
Alex looked back through the glass. Dr. Halberd had stopped talking. She sat still now, just breathing. Creating presence. She wasn’t trying to fix the woman. She was just there. Waiting.
“I keep thinking about what she must have heard where she was held,” Alex said, voice low. “The kind of silence it takes to erase someone like that.”
Tristan folded his arms. “Sensory deprivation. Extreme isolation. Sleep manipulation. No need for violence if you know how to shut the mind down.”
Alex stared harder at the woman. Her posture was perfect, like a doll set upright by someone else's hands. A survivor. But barely. Not a witness. Not yet. A warning.
He forced himself to take a step back. The chair scraped under him as he stood. “I need to know if she’s connected to Charlotte. If there’s something she saw, or heard, or?—”
“She may never speak again,” Tristan said bluntly. “We have to prepare for that possibility.”
Alex didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He turned and left the room without a word.
The hallway outside was cold, brightly lit, too clean. His shoes echoed against the tile as he walked fast, until he found the door that led to the rear parking lot. He stepped out into the wind and sucked in a breath like he’d been underwater.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. Still no call. Still no update. He looked down the road, imagining her SUV cuttingacross the plains toward a prison filled with men who didn’t deserve to speak her name.
And sitting in the passenger seat was the only living man she’d ever let that close before him. He clenched the phone so tight, it creaked. He didn’t care about pride. He didn’t care about jealousy. He cared that whoever was behind this had already touched Charlotte’s life, and they weren’t finished.
He needed her back. Now. He needed to hear her voice. Because after what he’d just seen in that room—after watching a woman turned into a husk by six months of invisible violence—he knew exactly what they were trying to do. This wasn’t about finishing what Ward started. It was about undoing Charlotte. Piece by piece. And Alex didn’t plan to sit still and watch that happen.
Alex wason his third cup of coffee when he stepped into the morgue to observe Henry Byron’s autopsy. “Alex…” Molly started to say.
“Molly, your mom and I will sort it out. She’s safe and with Graham Cullen pursuing a lead.”
Molly gasped. “God, what is she thinking?” She paused. “I guess she isn’t. I’m sorry, Alex.”
He smiled.
