The front doors opened. Ginny stumbled out first, looking shaky and agitated. She wore the customary micro mini, but a longer top to help conceal the hardware they’d tucked inside her push-up bra. She fiddled with the bra now, jiggling the cups a little, and a rush of static flooded the headphones.

“Tell me she didn’t just-” Sal started, but then audio returned. He breathed a sigh of relief, but Kimberly didn’t think they were out of the woods yet.

A man had appeared behind Ginny. Trim, wiry build. Brown hair, tanned forearms. Jeans and shirt were nicer than she expected. Less chicken farmer, more Eddie Bauer. The brim of a faded red baseball cap was pulled low over his face, leaving behind the impression of a hat, instead of a person. Now you see him, now you don’t.

The man headed down the street, Ginny no longer talking but hanging on to his arm. A moment later, the front door opened and Sparks appeared, making a show of lighting up a cigarette, then strolling off in the same direction as the happy couple, cigarette dangling from her fingertips.

Sal and Kimberly exchanged another glance.

“What the hell is Ginny doing?” Sal whispered in agitation.

“I don’t know.”

“We’re FUBAR.”

“Wanna tell Sparks to abort?”

“Nah,” Sal said nervously. “Not yet.”

They went back to their headsets, listening for Ginny in one ear and Special Agent Sparks in the other.

From the left, the sound of a car door opening, slamming shut. Ginny’s high-pitched giggle. “So you really are happy to see me…”

From the right, Sparks’s clipped tones. “Subject and Miss Jones have entered a black Toyota FourRunner with silver trim. Vehicle coated with mud; can’t read license plate.”

“We can have him picked up on a minor infraction,” Sal whispered.

“Shhhh.” Kimberly held a finger to her lips.

“So what’s it gonna be, big boy,” Ginny was saying. “Suck or fuck?”

“Talk, you little bitch. I didn’t come all the way down here to get played by some hooker. Asking me to pay for a goddamn blood test. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Ginny said hastily. “I mean, I couldn’t think of any other way to get your attention.”

Long pause.

“Ginny, you’d better start talking, or so help me God, you won’t be worrying about hepatitis no more.”

“They’re asking about me.”

“Who?”

“Special agents. From the GBI. They claim that working girls are disappearing. They wanna know what’s going on. They keep asking for Ginny Jones.”

“What’d you tell ’em?”

“Nothin’! I mean, girls head to Texas all the time, right? I said maybe they should try there.”

“Other names they mentioned?” the man pressed.

“Dunno.”

He slapped her. The sharp crack of the blow caught Kimberly off guard, made her flinch.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t-”

Another thwack of skin connecting with skin. Sal’s knuckles had gone white on the headphones. His face was grim.

“DON’T LIE TO ME!”

“I don’t remember! I’m sorry, they were talking, there were so many names and I was trying to be quiet, not call attention. No, don’t hit me, I’m not lying, I swear, I swear, I swear, I swear.”

Another blow. More screaming.

“Abort,” Kimberly said, looking at Sal, the lines etching his face. “She’s done. We gotta get her out.”

But Sal shook his head. “No, he’s just messing with her. He’s not serious yet. That’s what’s so crappy about it. He doesn’t even mean it yet.”

And maybe Sal was right, because the other end of the headphones finally grew quiet.

“You got thirty seconds, girl. What the hell do you really want?”

The silence again, long and taut. Then Ginny exclaimed in a rush: “I want to see my mother, okay? I just wanna…see her.”

“What?”

“Holy mother of God,” Sal intoned.

“She’s going for it,” Kimberly agreed, and found herself on the edge of her seat. Ginny had given up trying to get Dinchara to mention the names of the missing girls. She was attempting to tie him to her mother’s murder instead. Kimberly was torn between wanting to hear what Ginny was going to say next, and wanting to bolt down the street straight to the mud-covered SUV, because this wasn’t going to end well.

“I remember the tape,” Ginny was whispering. “I know she’s gone…what you did to her. I tried to tell myself it doesn’t matter. It’s not like she ever cared about me.”

“You implying I did something wrong, Ginny Jones?” the man asked coldly.

“I’m just saying…”

“You, the high-school dropout, ran away from home to sell your ass for twenty-five bucks a pop, four months knocked up?”

“Stop it…”

“I mean, if I were a cop, I’d say you look pretty good for it. Small-town girl nobody ever liked. Killed your mom to get away, killed your rivals in order to compete. Do we got lethal injection in Georgia? I don’t remember, but seems to me it wouldn’t be that hard for a jury to send white trash like you off to where you belong-inside stone walls, baby taken away, strapped to a gurney, needle entering the vein…”

“I hate you,” Ginny whispered. “Why are you like this? You’re so mean.”

“Why are you such a loser, Ginny? Why do you sell your body, get yourself knocked up? Hell, seems to me you’re the one with all the problems. I’m certainly not dialing you up to piss and moan all night.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Nah, I’m the man in charge. And you’d better start remembering that. Now get the fuck out, and don’t bother me again. It’s the cops’ job to ask questions. It’s your job to shut the fuck up. Got it?”

“I want to see her.”

“Girl, weren’t you just listening-”

“She was my mom! And now I’m gonna be a mom. And it…It just doesn’t feel right, ending like this. I wanna talk to her again. Tell her ’bout the baby. Make peace. Say goodbye.”

“What are you, fuckin’ crazy?”

“She’s somewhere, right? I mean, you buried her or dumped her or burned her or did whatever it is you do to the bodies. But she’s somewhere. A grave. If you could just tell me where, so I could go to her…I won’t touch anything. I just wanna talk.”

“Jackie…” Sal whispered nervously.

“Are you wearing a wire?” Dinchara’s voice suddenly boomed.

“Wh-wh-what? Don’t be crazy-”

“Are you setting me up? Are you setting me up?”

A hastily indrawn breath, Ginny’s sharp, short cry.

“Jackie!” Sal, over the radio, demanding now.

Kimberly, rising out of her seat, trying to figure out what to do.

“Where the hell is it! Tell me! NOW!”

“Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting me! Let go of my arm. I just wanna talk to my mom. Haven’t you ever been around a pregnant woman before? It’s hormonal. Honest!”

“Where is it, where is it, where is it? Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Stop, stop, stop! It hurts. Oh God, let go-”

Kimberly leapt for the door of the van, hand on the door, preparing to slide it open. Just as Ginny started to scream in her ear again, high-pitched and thin, a sudden pounding sound came from the other side of her brain.

“Hey.” Special Agent Sparks’s giddy voice broadcast through the madness. “Sounds like a party. Can anyone join in?” Another high-pitched giggle, the crack of chewing gum. “Hey, mister, nice wheels. You like to go four-wheelin’? How about takin’ me for a ride?”

“Holy mother of God.” Sal looked like he was having a heart attack. He was doubled over in his seat, both hands on his head.

Kimberly wavered next to the door, equally transfixed.

Sparks babbled away: “I mean check this out. I haven’t seen mud like this since I rode my daddy’s John Deere across the chicken farm.”