The woman tightened her grip on the badge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is she?\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl pointed back toward the bakery alley.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2026 behind the storage room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without another word, they moved.<\/p>\n
The baker followed a few steps, still shouting.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s lying! There\u2019s nothing back there!\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman stopped him with a single look.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The alley was narrow and damp, filled with the smell of flour and old oil.<\/p>\n
At the end stood a plain metal door.<\/p>\n
No sign.<\/p>\n
No window.<\/p>\n
Just a heavy lock.<\/p>\n
The girl stepped forward and pressed her small hand against it.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was taken in yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s expression hardened.<\/p>\n
She checked the lock, then the frame.<\/p>\n
Fresh scratches.<\/p>\n
Recent use.<\/p>\n
She stepped back.<\/p>\n
\u201cStep away.\u201d<\/p>\n
She raised her radio again.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuspected illegal confinement. Need immediate entry support.\u201d<\/p>\n
A crackle answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnits dispatched.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl clutched the baguette tighter, her voice barely a whisper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill she be okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman looked down at her.<\/p>\n
Then at the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found her.\u201d<\/p>\n
And behind the metal frame\u2014<\/p>\n
something shifted inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The woman tightened her grip on the badge. \u201cWhere is she?\u201d The girl pointed back toward the bakery alley. \u201cThere\u2026 behind the storage room.\u201d Without another word, they moved. The baker followed a few steps, still shouting. \u201cShe\u2019s lying! There\u2019s nothing back there!\u201d The woman stopped him with a single look. \u201cStay out of this.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}