The seven-hour drive from Minneapolis to Chicago felt like I was crossing the entire country with a jagged blade pressed against my ribs

silence was suffocating. My brother, Chris, was waiting for me on the front steps. He didn’t look like the sharp, composed attorney I knew; he looked like a man who had stared into the abyss and found something he couldn’t unsee.

“Where is she?” I demanded, my voice cracking. I hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, and my mind was a fractured mosaic of terror.continue reading …