August 25
The message appeared on Sarah Martinez's phone at 2:11 p.m.
Mama, can you bring me school supplies tomorrow? Everyone else has new backpacks.
Sarah stared at the screen for several seconds.
Outside the windshield, the August sun turned the Texas highway into a sheet of shimmering silver. Even with the air conditioner running at full strength, the heat pressed against the windows of her car.
She glanced at the clock.
She had already worked seven hours.
She had another seven to go.
August twenty-fifth.
School started in two days.
And if Sarah worked the entire double shift at the Desert Star Truck Stop, she would take home about $180.
Exactly enough for Lily's backpack, notebooks, pencils, and the clothes her seven-year-old daughter needed.
Sarah slipped the phone into her pocket and closed her eyes.
Three years earlier, her life had been completely different.
Her husband, Miguel, had been a long-haul truck driver. He had spent fifteen years driving the highways of Texas and the Southwest.
Then one rainy night, a highway accident took him away.
Since then, Sarah had worked every shift she could get.
Morning shifts.
Night shifts.
Weekends.
Holidays.
She had learned to sleep whenever Lily was at school and work whenever Lily was asleep.
She had also learned something else.
Sometimes survival meant saying yes when every part of you wanted to say no.
Sarah grabbed her purse and stepped out of the car.
The heat hit her like a furnace.
She looked toward the truck stop.
Four hours remained.
She had no idea that those four hours would change her life forever.
Eighteen Days
Kayla Marie Foster had been counting the days.
Eighteen.
Eighteen days since a man named Derek had bought her coffee at a gas station in Omaha.
Except Derek wasn't really his name.
Neither was the name of the man who had introduced himself to her the next morning.
She remembered the coffee.
She remembered the strange taste.
Then nothing.
When she woke up, her wrists were tied to a radiator in a basement in Denver.
For eighteen days, Kayla had been moved from house to house.
She had been threatened.
Humiliated.
Starved.
Drugged.
Told that nobody was looking for her.
Told that nobody cared.
Most importantly, she had been told what would happen if she resisted.
They knew where her parents lived.
They knew where they worked.
They knew how to find them.
So Kayla learned to obey.
But she never stopped thinking.
She never stopped looking.
And she never stopped hoping.
Now she sat in the backseat of a black sedan headed toward Salt Lake City.
A buyer had paid fifteen thousand dollars for her.
Kayla didn't know who the buyer was.
She didn't know what would happen when they arrived.
She only knew one thing.
Once she reached that destination, she might never be found.
The car stopped outside a truck stop.
Richard Voss sat behind the wheel.
He wore an expensive polo shirt and a gold watch.
Dale Krueger, sitting beside Kayla, wore a trucking company jacket.
Richard glanced into the rearview mirror.
"You've been quiet."
Kayla said nothing.
Richard smiled.
"We're going inside."
He opened the door.
"There's air conditioning. You can get some water."
Then his expression hardened.
"But if you try anything, your parents' house burns down tonight."
Kayla froze.
"We have people watching them."
Her heart pounded.
"Understand?"
Kayla nodded.
She didn't have the strength to do anything else.
The car had been sitting in the Texas heat for twenty minutes.
Her vision blurred.
Her lips were cracked.
Her skin burned.
She knew the symptoms.
Heat exhaustion.
Maybe heat stroke.
She had learned about it years ago in school, back when her life had been normal.