Jess wished she’d stayed in bed. Hank wasn’t home. Nobody at the dojo knew where he was, or when he might be back. She was determined not to talk to him over the phone, because she needed for him to be able to see her face-to-face, to realize that she was genuinely sorry about the way she’d acted — and it was hard to convey that over the phone. For her, at least.

She called the surveillance team and asked them if they were available to head in early, but they weren’t.

She considered going in without backup, just to have some time to talk to Teri, but she decided this wasn’t the day to be that stupid. She needed to get anything Teri said on tape, just in case. And she didn’t feel like running into Lenny without backup and becoming the next dead dancer because she had decided not to follow protocol.

So she ended up back in that dismal yellow hole in the wall she was inhabiting. With enough cold breakfast for two people, and not enough appetite for one. If she’d needed to have her nose rubbed in everything that was wrong with her life, the day seemed to be more than willing to provide.

Jim called. “Checking in,” he said. “I spent most of last night awake, running back through Northwhite’s record and history. From Northwhite’s extensive rap sheet, I discovered that his first adult offense was statutory rape of his stepsister, whose name was Lori Wedder. Wedder’s mother filed charges against Northwhite shortly before she and Lenny’s father split up, but then dropped them. Northwhite, still going by his birth name of Mitchell Devon Leonard, would have been eighteen at the time, Wedder fifteen. We don’t have anything on why the charges were dropped. The mother has vanished since then, so we can’t ask her. According to the notes on your sister’s missing-persons file, Lori Wedder is also the name of the girl who took her to the bus station.”

Jess felt a sharp thrill of connection. Jim added, “I thought it was interesting that by the time Wedder was twenty-three and Northwhite, by then going as Mitch Devon, was twenty-six, the two of them were working in the same strip club. And that Wedder formed a significant part of Northwhite’s alibi when your sister went missing.”

“How so?’

Jim said, “If no one saw your sister get on the bus, then the time of Virginia’s disappearance could have been days earlier.”

“No, it couldn’t have,” Jess said. “Because I talked to Ginny on the phone only a few hours before Wedder said she took Ginny to the bus station. Much as I don’t want to be, I’m part of Northwhite’s alibi. Ginny could only have gone missing during the twenty-four hours between when I called her to talk, and when she didn’t show up at my mother’s the next day as she’d promised.”

“Shit. I was hoping this meant that Northwhite and Wedder were working in collusion.”

Jess said, “They still might have been. And I may be onto something valuable regarding Wedder.”

“Since she disappeared not long after your sister did, anything would be useful.”

“I think a photo in Teri Thomas’s office is made out to Lori Wedder. The photo was old, the writing was bad, and the ink and everything else were faded. And I might also be misremembering what I think I saw. But if the photo is of Teri, and I’m sure it must be, and if it’s made out to Lori Wedder, we might have found our missing girl.”

“So go in and talk to Teri Thomas.”

“I will,” Jess said. “As soon as the surveillance team is ready.”

“Thomas going to be there today?”

“She’s always there,” Jess said.

“Then they’ll be ready,” Jim told her.

* * *

Hank decided to get to Jess’s a little before she was scheduled to leave. Technically, he didn’t have to have any contact with her until he walked into the club, and then only if either he or she needed to exchange information. But he wanted to see her. He didn’t know what he could say that would make things better. I’m sorry I’m trying to save your life? I’m sorry I’m afraid for you? He didn’t see where either of those were going to go over well. He wasn’t sorry, either. He was just sorry she was so upset with him. But he wanted to say something.

Only she wasn’t there. Her car wasn’t in the parking space, and when he went upstairs, he could feel her touch on the doorknob, leaving. On her way to the club.

So he drove in, feeling more frustrated and angry with every passing minute.

Jess was right in front of him as he walked through the doors, talking to the greeter, an earnest expression on her face. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and the front of her blouse, honey gold and straight, swinging with every gesture. Her gold blouse was see-through, her bra beneath it black and sparkling, her short-short skirt metallic gold with black trim. Her legs were bare, and he could remember what they felt like draped over his shoulders and shoved apart by his thighs, and his mouth went dry.

Jess glanced in his direction. Gave him the same professional-friendly smile she would have given any other customer walking through the door, then returned her attention to the greeter.

He’d wanted something special. Some little acknowledgment that he wasn’t just anybody. That she wasn’t angry with him, that the two of them were still the two of them. But he didn’t get it. He could tell himself she was undercover, that he couldn’t expect her to break cover for him. But that didn’t change what he wanted.

He handed his money to the greeter, then walked past Jess into the ballroom, wanting her and beginning to despise himself for wanting her.

“I need to talk to Teri right away,” Jess was saying. “It’s an emergency, Kate.”

Hank found an excuse to lean against a pillar in the ballroom but out of sight.

“Gracie, she’s out today,” the greeter said. “She called in this morning, said she’d gone out to eat last night with friends and this morning she can’t get away from the toilet. She said she’s sure she’ll be feeling well enough to be here tomorrow. Maybe even later today. But Louella is taking care of everything right now.”

He could hear Jess’s exasperated sigh. “Today of all days,” she said.

“To tell you the truth, though, I don’t think she’ll be in tomorrow, either,” Kate said. “I don’t think any of us will be.”

And Jess said, “Oh?”

“Not because of her. Because of him.”

“Lenny?”

“The police were already here this morning, wanting to talk to him. He told them if they didn’t have a warrant, they couldn’t look through his office or his home, and if they had any other questions, they could talk to his lawyer.”

“Then he’s taken care of it,” Jess said.

“The cops are going to be back. Some of the girls are saying Lenny’s the third killer. I bet the police end up shutting us down today.”

“You think?”

“Cops in and out of here, Lenny with lawyers practically living in his office, Teri in a panic over the number of dancers quitting. I think so.” A blast of music drowned out what she said next. Hank moved closer and heard, “...too, because this is the only place I’ve ever worked where anybody gave a shit about the dancers. You go to other clubs, there’s nobody like Teri or Louella to take care of you.”

“I like them.”

“They’re special. Both of them. As sleazy as this place can get, it would be a million times worse without them.”

“I’ve got to go,” Jess said. “I need to get to work.”

“Yeah. I have another week before I can even start physical therapy on my leg — I really miss the dancing money. Being a greeter pays nothing.”

“Hang in,” Jess said. “You’ll get through this.”

“You, too. Give your brother a hug from me.” Hank heard Jess’s footsteps start toward him. “Oh! Gracie! I almost forgot. Someone sent you a little stuffed bear. It’s backstage, waiting.”

“A stuffed bear?” She laughed. “Well, that’s better than candy, I guess.”

Hank stepped in front of her as she came around the corner, and said, “We need to talk.”

And she smiled at him, a sad, worried smile that was nothing like what he’d expected. “I need to talk,” she said, her voice low and hurried, “and you need to let me. I owe you an apology. But... we can’t right now. I have to get in touch with Teri — I think she could give us the info we need to get a search warrant for Lenny.” She backed away, flashed him a dancer’s smile, and said, “I haven’t forgotten I owe you that lap dance, sweetie. I’m going on stage in a few minutes, but I’ll catch you when I get back. Wait for me, okay?”

“Forever,” he said. That was supposed to have been in character — a drooling promise from Hank the Stripper Groupie. But when he said it, Hank the Guy in Love with Jess was the one who spoke.

* * *

Jess danced. Most of the regulars had cleared out early on. The ghouls who’d taken their places for a few days, hoping for another murder so they’d be able to tell the neighbors the next day that they’d talked to that dead girl the night before, had thinned out as well. The place felt empty, and that made dancing harder. Fewer eyes watching her made each pair that remained more personal somehow. More invasive, hungrier and more desperate. The empty seats spilled shadows across the floor; the missing dancers had taken most of the air in the place with them when they left. A ghost storm rumbled in between the drumbeats, a falling barometer of fear that left everyone in the place slicked with cold sweat.

No one was pretending any longer. The noise and the greed and the frantic laughter and the desperate reaching out couldn’t cover over the ghosts anymore. Jess could almost feel them watching her — dead girls crying out for vengeance, for justice. Ginny was among them. Maybe Ginny was first among them.

And that, too, drained her, left her weak and shaky when she needed to be strong. The hole in her life that was Ginny, that had been Ginny for so long, ached in every breath she drew, in every step she took.

She couldn’t think about her sister often, because Ginny was half of Jess, but gone. All her childhood dreams and hopes, all her shared tribulations and memories could never be shared again with the one other person to whom they had meant so much.

Jess had prayed for so long that she would find her way to Ginny, that Ginny would be okay, that they could somehow put back together the friendship that some siblings were lucky enough to share. She had prayed that whatever had gone wrong between them, it would not turn out to be irreparable.

Now believing herself close at last to the truth behind Ginny’s disappearance, she could no longer hold out hope that she would find her sister alive. The truth would hurt. The pain would go on, the emptiness that by the end of this was going to last forever.

But the storm was about to break. Something big was about to happen. And maybe, even if it didn’t take away the pain, the truth would clean the wounds. Maybe, just maybe, Jess would be able to return her mother’s other child to her, and that aching, grieving, hollow hope would leave behind something that resembled peace.

Jess talked. She circulated. She watched. She kept checking backstage, hoping that Teri would show up. Lenny apparently left sometime after Jess arrived.

She watched Hank watching her, too. She could see pain in his eyes — pain that she’d put there. They had to talk. Had to work things out between them.

She wasn’t sure if he’d forgive her for being so impossible. She’d had her points — she couldn’t quit doing her job because it was dangerous, and she couldn’t walk away from this chance to find her sister now that she might finally have it. But she hadn’t even tried to understand what he’d been saying. Or how what she was doing might look to him.

She had to believe he’d forgive her. She loved him. She shouldn’t have let herself fall for him, but she felt like she’d had as much choice in the matter as she’d had in the color of her eyes. She had been made for him, he had been made for her, and the two of them not working out would be an inconceivable cosmic injustice.

She stopped by his table once and sat with him. “I’m going to have to get rid of an anonymous gift someone left for me backstage,” she said. “Need to make sure it lands in the dumpster out back, nicely wrapped in a brown paper bag. I want to get it to the forensics team. I suspect it’s from Lenny, which might make it useful.”

“You up for supper and company tonight?”

“I am.” She rested her hand atop his. “I’m sorry about last night. Really sorry.”

He said, “Me, too. I shouldn’t have stormed out the way I did.”

“Yes, you should have. I earned it. We’ll talk. We’ll get this worked out, Hank. You... I...” She felt like she was going to choke up if she said anything more. This wasn’t the time or the place.

“I’ll pick us up supper on the way to your place. How do you feel about pizza?”

“I haven’t eaten much of anything in days. Bring two, cover them in meat and cheese, and make them extra large.”

He laughed, his half smile beautiful to her. “A woman after my own heart.”

“I’ll see you at my place, then?”

“I’ll leave when you do. We should get there at about the same time.”

* * *

Jess got out late, walked back to the dumpster, and tossed her bagged teddy bear into it.

The floor manager accompanying her said, “Didn’t like the present?”

“Didn’t like the person who left it for me.”

“Ah,” he said, and walked her to her car. Behind her, the undercover cop in the dumpster would be quickly tossing it out to the luckier senior cop who was loitering around outside the dumpster.

In her rearview mirror, Jess saw Hank pull out of the parking lot right behind her. She watched him until he veered off to pick up their pizzas.

The rest of the way home, she traveled alone.

She pulled into the parking lot at the crappy by-the-month rental community, and stared at her run-down building, and thought, I’m not alone because men are jerks. I’m not alone because no man would understand the importance of what I do and find ways to fit me into his life. I’m alone because it’s easier to make excuses than to make changes. And if I keep making excuses, I’m going to die alone.

Except she didn’t know how to make the changes she needed to make.

She sat in the car, staring at the puddles of light her headlights threw against the cracked, faded siding. At the shadows they made in the moth-eaten shrubbery. At the overflowing dumpsters sitting beside the seedy units, at the towels and blankets and aluminum foil being used as curtains by tenants, at the piles of dog crap in the weedy grass.

This moment was a snapshot of who she was — of the path she walked voluntarily. Her mission mattered — it mattered as much as it ever had. But did that mean she had to sacrifice everything else for it? She was going to spend the rest of her life alone if the answer to that question was yes. And she desperately did not want her mission to be the only thing in her life.

Work to home. Home to work.

Without even a cat waiting for her.

Or a goldfish.

Or a plant.

Because work took everything she had.

She turned off the ignition. She’d go inside, and in a few minutes Hank would come along and those awful yellow walls would fade away, replaced by his life and his warmth and his humor. By his touch.

For tonight, things would be better. But how did she keep them better? She’d taken only one other chance on a man, and she had been the one to give up and walk away. In retrospect, he hadn’t been the right man. He’d been like a crosstown bus. If she’d wanted another like him, one would have been along in ten minutes.

Hank, though... Hank was magic, and if she couldn’t figure out how to fix her life to fit him into it, another Hank wouldn’t be along in ten minutes. Or ten years. Or ever.

She got out of the car, took the fire-exit stairs rather than the elevator up to her room because it was late and she didn’t want to find herself in an elevator with anyone, and walked down the seedy chipped-linoleum-floored hallway to her room.

Unlocked the door. Opened it.

The lights were off, when she always left them on. But some light spilled into the room from the dim hallway; she could see enough by that to have adrenaline kick her hard.

Everything she owned was scattered around the room. From her first glance into the dark studio, she could tell that almost everything had been torn to shreds.

Jess had her backup gun on her ankle. She reached down, pulled the weapon from its holster, and thumbed off the safety. Stepped into the room, elbowed the light switch on, kept the handgun raised as light flooded the place.

The studio apartment was empty; the bathroom door hung off its hinges, and from the doorway she could see every bit of space clearly. She didn’t touch anything. Didn’t want to take a chance of screwing up fingerprints.

No one was in the apartment. No one was out on the back fire escape.

A knife stuck out of the wall two feet above the daybed.

It might have been the one the vandal had used to slice up the mattress. It pinned an index card-sized piece of paper in place.

Jess walked over to it, keeping her attention on both entrances to the apartment — the window and the door.

Yeah. No shit, she thought.

Her cell phone was clipped to the waistband of her jeans. She pulled it off and dialed Jim.

“Got a threatening note in my apartment. And the place has been trashed. I need you and backup over here at light speed.”

“You safe?”

“Secure for the moment,” she said. “The place is empty except for me. I’m armed. And Hank should be here with pizza any minute.”

“The cavalry and I will be right behind him.” On the other end of the connection, Jim sighed, and she could hear him mutter, “Yeah, baby, you’re going to have to go home. Case I’m working on just hit another snag.”

She heard a female voice complaining bitterly. Then Jim was back.

“By the way,” he said, “are you ever going to let me get some fucking sleep?”

“Apparently not.”

When she hung up, she called Hank. “Someone hit my apartment,” she said.

“I’m about seven minutes out at current speeds. I’ll punch it,” he said.

He beat the APD by three minutes. Hank clearly had a good understanding of the art of quantum driving.

Jess met him in the hallway, and she wasn’t sure if he looked that pale because the lights in the hallway were flickering, buzzing fluorescent monstrosities, or because he was scared.

She got sure fast. “What the hell happened to your car?” he asked, and her mouth went dry and all the air whooshed out of her lungs.

“What do you mean, what happened to my car? My apartment got hit.”

“So did your car,” he said. “The tires are slashed, the windshield wipers and the antenna are broken off and gone, the doors have been jimmied open and the seats have been ripped apart.”

“On my... car?”

She’d been calm about the apartment. It wasn’t hers; nothing in it had really belonged to her — it had all belonged to Gracie. But the car was her car.

She loved that car. There’d been less than seven hundred of them made, and hers had been in good shape. Not mint, but everything on it was original, and it had been hers. She’d hunted it down, bargained for it, babied it, got it running. She’d loved it.

Suddenly she was shaking. She wasn’t the cop at a crime scene anymore. She lost her distance. All of a sudden she was the victim, with somebody coming after her. She couldn’t say the killer was after Grace anymore. She couldn’t separate them out. In that moment, she and Grace stopped being two separate people, and the reality that she was in danger — that she personally had someone who planned to kill her, hit her hard.

Her knees wobbled, and Hank pulled her into his arms. “I’ve got you,” he said.

He walked her out to the parking lot, and let her see what the bastard had done to her car.

“Can you tell who did this?” she asked him. “Was it the killer, or someone else?”

“The same person who killed the dancers did this.”

Which meant the killer had been in the bushes, watching her sit in her car. Watching her get out and walk across the parking lot. He’d had the chance to grab her right there, right then, while her mind was on Hank and not on protecting herself. It could have been all over. She could have been gone, and they’d have never found her.

Jim and Charlie came down to the parking lot to talk to her.

Hank said, “She’s going to be staying with me until you catch this guy.”

Jess looked up at him. “Am I?”

“Yes.” Hank’s voice made it clear that he would not accept alternative suggestions. At the moment, she didn’t feel like making them.

Jess’s attention was on the car. She couldn’t stop looking at it.

The slashed car seat and the tossed and scattered batting could have been her. She kept seeing those long cuts in the upholstery, kept transferring them to her body. Seeing blood — her blood — in puddles on the pavement. Seeing long rips in herself. She knew what rips in people looked like. She knew only too well the way skin pulled apart and left gaping holes filled with dark, bubbling blood.

More cop cars were in the parking lot, lights flashing, and uniformed APD officers were combing the apartment complex hoping to catch the bastard before he got away clean. Detectives walked from door to door, knocking.

For a moment, Jess felt nine years old again, down at the bottom of the public swimming pool with Ginny, with both of them holding their breath and watching legs and arms flashing overhead. The screams and laughter sounded like they were coming from another world, drifting down to the bottom in little shivery fragments. She heard people talking all around her. But all the sense behind the words was gone.

It would have been easy to stay there, to let herself be the victim. But victimhood was never productive. Never useful, neither to the victim nor to anyone else. Jess needed to think, not feel. She needed anger, not fear. She needed focus. She needed to catch the son of a bitch who was doing this, and nail him to a wall.

She realized that Hank had been watching her. “Back with me, sweetheart?” he asked.

She looked at him steadily, and gave him a cold, angry smile. “Bet on it. Let’s get this guy.”