“Dinchara made me do it! Don’t you remember? He’s only happy if he can kill someone you love. Except Aaron didn’t have any family left. Dinchara was the one who took him away. So who was left for him to love?”

Ginny’s eyes skittered away at the last line and, in that instant, Kimberly got it. She sat back, stunned, and felt the first of the outrage leave her body.

“You,” she breathed. “You were the logical target. And both of you understood that, didn’t you? That Dinchara would ask Aaron to kill you. Unless you found someone else.”

“It had to be a good target,” Ginny said, not looking at any of them anymore. “Someone important, but threatening to Dinchara as well, so he’d take an interest. I read an article on the Eco-Killer, what you did. I showed it to Dinchara and…” She shrugged. “He liked you. A good-looking female who kicked ass. He thought it was pretty funny. And then I knew it would work.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Kimberly asked tiredly. “We could’ve helped you, set up a whole operation. You just needed to tell us what was going on.”

“Like my mom begged for help? Or Tommy?” Ginny’s lips curved in a smile at Kimberly’s shocked expression. “Of course Dinchara told me what Aaron did. It was too perfect for him not to share. How Aaron stood there with the gun shaking in his hands. How Tommy begged. Called him sir, offered him his truck, his money, even a blow job. And you can hear Dinchara in the background, this whispering little ghoul, ‘Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him, pull the fucking trigger, you pantywaist. Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him…’ Until Aaron pulls the trigger.

“I still hear it, sometimes late at night. My mom screaming, Tommy begging. And Dinchara, chortling away. So really, how are you gonna help me, Little Miss FBI? How can anyone help me?”

Ginny stopped talking. Her hands were still on her stomach, caressing the little round bulge now, trying to soothe.

“Aaron was the one who called me, wasn’t he?” Kimberly asked. “You gave him my cell phone number, he called me to bait the trap.”

“He gave you information,” Ginny countered. “All you had to do was find Dinchara, and none of this woulda happened.”

“And the packets of driver’s licenses, left on Special Agent Martignetti’s windshield?”

Ginny shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I was just doing what I was told.”

“You delivered them?” Sal interrupted. “But why? Ordered by whom?”

Ginny gave him a funny look. “By Dinchara, of course. Who the hell do you think’s running this show?”

Kimberly shared Sal’s confusion. “Dinchara wanted the IDs delivered to the GBI?”

“He wanted them delivered to Special Agent Martignetti. Showed me a picture of him and everything.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why not? Haven’t you guys been paying attention? You don’t ask Dinchara any questions. Not if you plan to live. He told me what to do. I did it. End of story.”

Kimberly frowned, not liking this bit of news.

Duff cleared his throat. “Ma’am, this Mr. Dinchara, he got a real name, a physical address? That’s the kind of information we need.”

“I don’t know.”

“Liar,” Kimberly said immediately.

“Hey, I already said-”

“Liar!” Kimberly slapped a photo on the table. They’d taken it from Ginny’s purse an hour earlier. The tattered black-and-white showed Ginny and Aaron, foreheads touching, laughing about something only they understood. Now the close-up caused both Ginny and Sal to do a double take. “Afternoons together at the mall. PDAs, photo ops. Obviously you developed a relationship with Aaron. Only way that happened is if Dinchara introduced you two.”

“He brought Aaron on one of his trips to Sandy Springs-”

“What, and graciously paid for Aaron to make whoopee?”

“And filmed us having sex. That’s what he does. Makes porn, then sells it on the Internet. You know the perv that sends out spam asking if you want to see pictures of a thirteen-year-old having sex with a goat? That’s Dinchara.”

“So he has a studio-”

“Backseat of a car-”

“Bullshit. Not for an operation that involved. He’s got a studio, in a house, where he’s taken you and you’ve been with Aaron.”

“I was blindfolded!” the girl cried. “He never let me see. You don’t know what he’s like-”

“Bullshit! We know exactly what he’s like. I got files of just his kind stacked all over my desk. Now stop stalling and tell us what we need to know.”

But Ginny wasn’t having it. She leaned over the table, wild-eyed. “No, really, you haven’t met his kind. I didn’t realize it, either. Not until he took off his hat. He doesn’t just like spiders. He thinks he is one. Honest to God, he has eyes tattooed all over his forehead.”

It took another two hours. Ginny denied knowing about the second boy. She insisted Dinchara always kept her blindfolded. She’d never met Aaron on her own, she didn’t know nothing about anything.

One a.m. Two a.m. Kimberly’s team had arrived. Rachel Childs led the work in the hotel room. Kimberly disappeared long enough to give a statement, have her hands swabbed for GSR, have her face photographed. When Harold was done with the photos, she asked him to accompany her back down to the basement dining room with the camera.

Ginny still sat at the end of the table, pale, hands shaking from exhaustion. Sal had moved to the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his features shut down, impossible to read. Rainie had disappeared, probably back to her room to sleep. Only Quincy and Duff seemed to still be hanging in there.

Kimberly placed the digital camera in front of Ginny. She started with the first close-up of Aaron Johnson, revealing his shattered skull. She went through all one hundred and fifty-two photos.

“This is what Dinchara did,” Kimberly stated calmly. Click, click, click. “He twisted Aaron.” Click, click, click. “Corrupted him.” Click, click, click. “Destroyed him.

“Aaron killed himself because he thought if he stayed alive, he would harm your child. Isn’t that what Dinchara taught him? You must destroy the thing you love. And he loved you, Ginny. With this bullet, fired into his brain, he sent you his love the only way he knew how.

“So what’s it going to be? Are you going to let Dinchara get away with this?”

“I hate you.”

“Going to write off one more loss? Going to try to return to a world where a man like Dinchara roams free-and knows all about your baby? What’s it gonna be?”

“He’s going to kill you. Once he hears about Aaron, it’s only a matter of time.”

“What’s it gonna be, Ginny?”

“He’ll go after me, too, if I help you. He’ll know. He knows everything.”

“So what’s it gonna be?”

Ginny Jones hugged her belly. She started to cry. Then she gave up the address.

Sal pushed away from the wall. “All right,” he said. “I’m calling SWAT.”