The sheriff came. The warrant came. The padlock on unit 63 came open, and what was inside was not a woman, and was not a body, and was not a chain, although there was a chain, coiled in a corner like a sleeping animal.
What was inside unit 63 was a filing cabinet, and inside the filing cabinet was a list.
Four names. Hannah Reed at the top, with a check mark that had not been drawn yet. Then a woman named Teresa Alvarez, who had disappeared three years before from a town an hour away and had never been found. Then a woman named Sandra Kim, whose disappearance had been ruled an accident. Then Dana Whitfield, whose name was written at the bottom in fresh ink.
There were also photographs. Eleven of them. Women walking out of grocery stores, women getting into cars, women standing at the fr
