“Get out.” Dinchara spoke up tersely. “Private party.”

“Now, now, now, mister. It’s a slow night. Can’t blame a girl for trying, ’specially with a fine-looking man. Been a while since I’ve seen a full set of teeth, know what I mean. Hey, honey, are you pregnant?”

“I’m tired,” Ginny intoned. “I think I’d like to go now.”

“Oh, honey, you’d better. Working while you’re pregnant? That’s no way to live.”

“Ah fuck it,” Dinchara said. “I’m tired, too.”

“Now, now, no need to be like that. I mean, if you really wanna rumble, big fella-”

Door creaking open. Sounds of a minor scuffle. Ginny’s startled exclamation. The man’s low curse. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Hey, now, big daddy-”

“I am not your fuckin’ daddy. Get out of my truck!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get testy. I’m just a sucker for leather seats. Reminds me of the pigs on my daddy’s farm-”

“GET OUT!”

“I’m going, I’m going, don’t get your panties in a wad. Men. Give ’em fancy wheels and they think they rule the world.”

Footsteps now. A vehicle door slamming shut. An engine roaring to life.

Sparks, back in the earpiece, her voice clear and concise. “Suspect has pulled out, heading north-”

Her tone got them both moving again. Sal grabbed the radio, describing the vehicle and requesting a traffic stop. Kimberly opened the van’s door, preparing for Ginny and Sparks to scramble in.

She spotted Sparks half a block away, running up the street, pulling Ginny behind her. Ginny’s right cheek bore the red imprint of the man’s hand. Her nose was running, her lashes clumped with tears.

“Who the hell is this?” she screeched immediately upon spotting Kimberly. “Did you send someone to spy on me?”

“More like backup,” Kimberly said briskly.

She helped them both climb in, glancing left, then right. So far, so good. She slid the door shut behind, while Sparks unhanded her charge, then held out her other arm in triumph.

“Brought you a present,” the special agent declared. “Look what fell out of the truck amid all the confusion: I got the man’s boot!”

KIMBERLY DROVE HOME ALL JAZZED UP. THREE A.M., GA 400 was finally empty and she zipped along, humming under her breath, tapping her fingers on the wheel and wishing she drove a Porsche. This was the kind of night it would be great to open the sucker up and watch the speedometer soar.

Instead, she kept her Passat station wagon safely under sixty-five, but that didn’t stop her mind from racing.

Sal would be requesting the creation of a multijurisdictional task force first thing in the morning. Dinchara hadn’t magically confessed to abducting and murdering any of the prostitutes on Sal’s list, but he hadn’t sounded or acted like an innocent man, either. They were onto something, and tonight’s recording would back them up.

Unfortunately, uniformed patrols never came across Dinchara’s vehicle for the requested traffic stop. That didn’t surprise Kimberly overly much. For all of Dinchara’s lowbrow speech, she had an impression of a cold, calculating intelligence. Even on home turf, he’d kept his hat pulled low and obscured his license plate with mud. She had a feeling he’d taken additional precautions with his exit from Sandy Springs.

They still had a BOLO out, however, so hopefully sometime over the next few days someone would spot the vehicle. Plus Sal was going to have Special Agent Sparks and Ginny sit down with a sketch artist and put together a composite drawing they could get into circulation.

By this time next week, hopefully, they’d know Dinchara’s name and vitals. And then the real fun would begin.

She hummed again, “Tainted Love,” and tapped her fingers to the beat.

It occurred to her that she was looking forward to going home. That she wanted to pull into her driveway, bound into her house. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to see her own husband.

That was it. Enough of this nonsense. Minute she got home, she was waking up Mac. They would hash this thing out once and for all. He could move to Savannah on a trial basis, they could find a house somewhere in between, she could explore her options at one of the Bureau’s regional offices. There was a way, there was always a way. They just needed to talk.

Then, she was jumping his bones, because there was nothing like a successful night’s work to make one horny.

Kimberly finally pulled into her driveway. Mac’s truck was gone. Instead, she walked into her living room to discover her father and his wife, Rainie. Quincy sat in the recliner, flipping through the paper. Rainie was curled up on a corner of the sofa, staring at some syndicated sitcom but clearly half asleep. Both roused when she entered the room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kimberly blurted out.

“Thought we were overdue for a visit,” her father said simply. Quincy always had been impossible to rattle.

And then Kimberly remembered-the last fight with Mac, her late-night phone message. All at once she blushed, feeling needy and overexposed. She should’ve called her father right back, told him to ignore her plea, she was just having a moment. She should’ve…done something.

“Working?” asked Rainie, barely suppressing a yawn. “Anything interesting?”

“No. Well, maybe. What time did you arrive? Have you had anything to eat? Did Mac show you your room? I’m so sorry to keep you up so late.”

“We’re on Oregon time,” her unflappable father assured her, still sitting in the chair, still holding the newspaper. “It’s not so late.”

Rainie gave him a look, muffled another yawn, then said, “We got in shortly after ten. Mac was home, but got called. I’ll confess, we ate all the leftover pizza-”

“We?” Quincy interjected.

“All right, I ate all the pizza. The Jolly Green Giant over here”-she pointed a thumb at Quincy-“made a salad.”

“We have vegetables?” Kimberly asked in surprise.

“Iceberg lettuce, red onions, and tomatoes,” her father supplied, “which I would assume are condiments in this house, but can be turned into a garden salad if one desires.”

“Huh,” Kimberly said.

Rainie finally broke the ice by crossing the room and giving Kimberly a welcoming hug.

“How are you feeling?” Rainie asked.

“Good. Good. All good.”

“The baby?”

“Healthy, growing, kicking.”

“You can feel it move?” Rainie’s voice picked up, sounded momentarily wistful. Late in life, Kimberly’s stepmom had decided she wanted children. She and Quincy had looked into adoption, but it hadn’t gone as planned. They never talked about it, but Kimberly was relatively sure those doors were closed to Rainie now, and the only children in her life were the ones she assisted as an advocate for abused children.

Did Kimberly’s pregnancy make her jealous, awaken old hurts, fresh regrets? Rainie was a former law enforcement officer, well-practiced in schooling her features and holding her tongue. Whatever she was feeling on the inside, it was doubtful it would ever show.

“Wanna touch it?” Kimberly asked.

“Yes.”

She took Rainie’s hand, moved it to her left side, just around the curve. Baby McCormack, engaged in her nightly aerobics, did not disappoint.

“Boy or girl?” Rainie asked. “What do you think?”

Quincy had gotten off the recliner and was standing next to his wife. He’d never ask, so Kimberly took his hand and pressed it against her side. The baby kicked again. Her father flinched, jerked his hand away. Then he smiled.