THREE

Chief Eustace V. Diggs, Jr. made the news that night—jaw set, eyes blazing, a perfectly placed dab of blood on his cheek. “Pick another town, pervert.” The guy could have been a movie star.

I was a smear in the background of the television shot, looking wide eyed and scared, like some rookie girl that the Chief had just saved from sure death. Or better yet, like a black version of Sissy Spacek in that scene from Carrie where the cool jerks at the high school dump the blood on her head, and she flips out and kills them all with her freaky special powers.

The Chief did give me a medal, though. After the ceremony he said, “Welcome back to active duty, Detective.”

“You mean it?” I said. I had spent a year and a half on what the department called administrative diversion. Suspension with pay, basically. Suddenly I felt like I could breathe again.

“Here,” Chief Diggs said, handing me a manila envelope. “Go down to the basement. I want you in the new unit.”

I frowned. The new unit. I was not aware there was such a thing.

“Room B6,” he said. “See Lt. Gooch.”

I could feel my brow furrowing. Gooch. I’d heard of him before. Him and his unit.

“Sir!” I said. “I was hoping—”

The Chief’s eyes widened a little, like I had said something amazing. “Oh!” he said. “My bad! You having so much fun interfacing with all the fine homasexshools in our community, you’d prefer to continue on as Acting GLBT Liaison.”

Sometimes I’m slow to pick up on signals. “Sir, not to grovel or whatever, but I saved your life!”

“Hold on, now. Have you entirely forgotten the reasons that you were placed on administrative diversion in the first place? Have you lost all gratitude for the fact that, but for my intervention, you would likely be sitting in the penitentiary right now?”

“I know sir, but I just want to ask a favor—”

He smiled broadly. “Doll, you in no position.”

“Sir, yes, I know, I know, believe me I’m grateful. But, sir, this Jenny Dial thing—well, see, what it is, I feel called. I feel like a . . . a . . . a mission inside of me. Is that crazy?”

“A mission! A call! Oh my land, I do relish an officer who comes to work with that sort of conviction, that sort of fervor!” He leaned closer to me so I could smell his cologne. “Just remember, in this place I am God. I furnish the mission. I furnish the call. So I’m telling you. Get yourself on that elevator. Forget that little girl.”

I don’t know why exactly, but I wanted to cry. I wanted to just lay down and bawl. But I didn’t. Instead, I walked across the hall to the elevator, pressed the down button.

The thing that got lost in the shuffle was that the girl in the basement was not Jenny Dial. Her name was Lorene Holmquist, and she was the daughter of the man I’d killed. He had been taking her around the country for about three years, renting her out to sickos like Delwood James Anderson for seven thousand dollars a month. There were rust stains tattooed into her skin from the chain she’d worn around her neck since she was a toddler.

Where was Jenny Dial, the girl who’d gone missing earlier in the week? Nobody knew. The big kiddie porn sweep had driven her story right off the TV news. And best I could tell, nobody in the Atlanta Police Department seemed to care all that deeply.

Nobody except me.