No one was hurt.

That is the sentence I keep, the one I said to Maya and will say to her again whenever she needs it: no one was hurt.

They took Julian into custody at the side of that road without a shot, and they opened the passenger door, and Elena was there — bruised, exhausted, dehydrated, her wrist bound to the door, terrified almost past speaking.

But alive.

Whole.

And the very first thing my ex-wife said, before she said anything about herself, before she wept or shook or asked for water, was a single word, to the first officer who reached her, the same word she’d apparently been saying for three days to anyone who would listen. Maya. Where is Maya.