My neighbor’s son came to my window at midnight and said, “You need to see my dad’s shed.”
Confrontation, Captivity, and the Chance for Redemption
He moved toward her, and I grabbed his arm, keeping my voice low and urgent. “We can’t just unchain her and let her go. Your dad will know immediately that someone found her, and if he figures out it was you, you’re in danger.”
“We need to call the police right now and get them here before your dad realizes anything’s wrong.”
Dylan shook his head violently. “My dad’s asleep in the house right now. If we call the police and they come with sirens and lights, he’ll wake up and he’ll know I brought them here.”
“He’ll destroy evidence or run or do something to cover this up. We need proof that he can’t deny, documentation that makes it impossible for him to talk his way out of this.”
I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures, my hands steadier than I expected considering the adrenaline flooding my system. I photographed the folders, the notebook with its entries, the woman chained in the corner—every detail of that shed that could serve as evidence.
Dylan grabbed a folder and started photographing individual pages, working methodically despite the tears streaming down his face. I asked quietly, still documenting everything I could see, “How long have you known? How long have you suspected something was wrong?”
Dylan’s voice came out choked. “Maybe six months.”
“I started noticing weird things. He’d come home from trips and have injuries he couldn’t explain well—scratches on his arms or bruises on his hands.”
“He started keeping the shed locked when it never used to be locked before, and a few times I heard him on the phone late at night talking in this voice I’d never heard before—cold and business-like, discussing deliveries and payments and schedules.”
I asked, and Dylan’s expression crumpled, “Did you try to tell your mom?”
He whispered, “My mom knows.”
“That’s the worst part. Three weeks ago, I confronted her about the locked shed and the weird behavior and asked if dad was doing something illegal, and she got this look on her face—not surprised, just resigned.”
“She told me that dad’s work was complicated and I was too young to understand and I needed to never ask questions about what he did for a living because some knowledge was dangerous.”
“She said families protect each other by not knowing too much, and I realized she’d been protecting herself by willful ignorance and expecting me to do the same.”
“But I can’t, not now that I know there’s a person chained up in our backyard.”
His voice broke completely on the last words, and I grabbed his shoulder, squeezing hard to ground him. “We’re going to fix this right now. We have enough pictures. We need to call 911 and get this woman help.”
But before I could dial, light flooded the shed as the door swung fully open. Dylan’s father stood silhouetted in the doorway, still in his pajama pants but holding a baseball bat, his face dark with fury.
His voice was low and dangerous, “What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”
I saw Dylan go rigid with fear beside me. I shoved my phone in my pocket, praying he hadn’t seen me taking pictures, and tried to keep my voice steady.
“Dylan heard noises and thought maybe an animal got in the shed. We were just checking to make sure everything was okay.”
Raymond Reeves stepped fully into the shed and closed the door behind him, and the click of it latching made my mouth go dry. He wasn’t buying it.
His eyes swept over the open folders on the table, the notebook we’d been photographing, and finally landed on his son with an expression that made my blood run cold. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Your mother told me you were asking questions. I told her you were too curious for your own good.”
Dylan said, his voice high and frightened but still defiant, “Dad, there’s a woman chained up in our shed.” “How can you act like that’s normal? How can you act like I’m the problem for finding her?”
Raymond’s grip tightened on the baseball bat, and he took a step toward us. “You don’t understand the world, Dylan. You think everything’s black and white, good guys and bad guys, but it’s not that simple.”
“Sometimes people have to do things that look bad from the outside to provide for their families.”
“That woman is part of a business transaction. She’ll be delivered to her new employer, and we’ll have enough money to pay off the house and send you to a good college. Everything I do is for this family.”
His justification was so casual, so matter-of-fact, that it took me a moment to process what he was actually saying. He wasn’t denying trafficking women; he was defending it as economic necessity.
I said, pulling my phone from my pocket, “I’m calling the police.”
But Raymond moved faster than I expected for a man his size. He swung the bat, and it connected with my forearm, sending the phone flying across the shed to smash against the wall.
Pain exploded up my arm, and I stumbled backward, cradling it against my chest. Dylan screamed and lunged at his father, and Raymond grabbed him by the jacket with his free hand, shaking him hard.
His voice had gone from cold to something worse, almost panicked, “You brought an outsider into this. You involved someone outside our family. Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“I can contain this if it’s just you; I can make you understand. But now there’s a witness, and that changes everything.”
He looked at me with calculation in his eyes, and I realized with absolute certainty that he was deciding whether killing me was his best option. The woman in the corner was making desperate sounds behind her gag, thrashing against her chains, and the noise seemed to break through Raymond’s focus.
He dragged Dylan toward the door, still gripping his jacket, and pointed at me with the bat. “You stay here. Don’t move. Don’t try anything. I need to think about how to handle this situation.”
He shoved Dylan through the door, and I heard the padlock click from outside, sealing me in the shed with the woman and all the evidence of Raymond’s crimes.
My arm throbbed where the bat had connected, but I didn’t think it was broken, just badly bruised. I waited thirty seconds, listening to Raymond’s footsteps retreat toward the house, and then I moved.
My phone was destroyed, but Dylan still had his, if Raymond hadn’t taken it from him. I needed another way to call for help.
The woman was making urgent sounds, and I went to her, carefully removing her gag. She gasped for air and then whispered frantically, “He’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill both of you. You need to get out of here right now.”
I asked, examining the chains that held her, “What’s your name?”
They were secured with a combination lock that I had no hope of opening without the code. She whispered, “Jessica Holt. I was taken from a parking garage in Portland six days ago.”
