Victoria Nguyen

I continued my way to New Mexico, my next pit stop, feeling like this was entirely a dream until I got a call around midnight from the police department in Arizona.

They asked me what I had done with the sticky note and I told them I still had it.

I sent over all the pictures that I took and they had me drop it off at the local police department the next day.

I dropped it off and I tried to ask questions but of course they couldn't really tell me anything and so I let it go and I continued my way home

After a few days had passed, I still couldn't get that woman off of my mind.

I wanted to know who she was.

I wanted to know what happened to her, if she was okay.

And that was when I had the bright idea.

Why don't I look it up online?

Maybe I could find something.

And so, I searched up crimes in that county,

And to my surprise, the first link that popped up was this news article, and it had a thumbnail photo of the sticky note she had given me.

I clicked the link, and I skimmed through it, and I learned that that woman was actually kidnapped the night before, and that evening, she was able to save herself by passing a note to a gas station customer.

She was fine.

She was with her family now, and she was safe.

And the man that she was with was arrested.

He was booked on multiple charges, including for having weapons in his car.

And when I read that, I felt chills run down my spine because I thought about how badly that could have gone if he had known I was trying to help her.

And I also thought about how right the dispatcher was in telling me not to follow them.

But most importantly, I was relieved that somehow it all worked out anyway, and she was OK, that I was OK.