what they’re thinking.”

“What’d you tell him, Pete?”

“That I was by the church when the shooting started. I told him the guy who was paying me three hundred dollars to drive the truck was named Hugo. I told him I feel like a damn coward for running away while all those women were being killed. He said I needed to come in and make a statement and I’d be protected. Then he said, ‘Is Ms. Gaddis with you? We can he’p her, too.’

“I said, ‘She’s not a part of this.’ He says, ‘We know about the characters at the truck stop, Pete. We think they either killed her or she put a hole in one of them. Maybe she’s dead and lying unburied someplace. You need to do the right thing, soldier.’”

Pete sat back down on the bed and began drawing his shirt up one arm, the network of muscles in his back tightening like whipcord.

“What’d you say?”

“I told him to kiss my ass. When people try to make you feel guilty, it’s because they want to install dials on you. It also means they’re gonna sell you down the river the first chance they get.”

“Can the FBI trace a cell phone call?” she asked.

“They can locate the tower it bounces off of. Why?”

“I’m going to call Junior.”

“I think that’s a bad idea. Junior makes a lot of noise, but Junior looks after Junior.”

“You only get thirty percent disability. It’s hardly enough to pay the rent. What are we supposed to do? This all started in a bar where you were drinking with idiots who soak their brains in mescal. For three hundred dollars, you put our lives in the hands of people who are morally insane.”

She saw the injury in his face. She turned away, her eyes closed, tears squeezing onto her eyelashes. Then, in her inability to control even the tear ducts in her face, she began hammering the tops of her thighs with her fists.

THAT AFTERNOON, WHILE Pete slept, Vikki walked down the road and used the pay phone to call Junior collect at the diner. She told him about the disability check and about their financial desperation. She also told him that the man Junior had sold milk to had tried to kidnap and possibly kill her.

“Maybe that’s more information than I need to know,” he said.

“Are you serious? That guy was in your diner. A guy with an orange beard was there, too. I think he was part of it.”

“The check’s at the mailbox in front of that shack y’all were living in?” Junior said.

“You know where we were living. Stop pretending.”

“The sheriff was here. So were some federal people. They thought maybe you were dead.”

“I’m not.”

“Did you shoot that guy who came here to buy milk?”

“Are you going to help us or not?”

“Isn’t this called aiding and abetting or something?”

“You are really pissing me off, Junior.”

“Give me your address.”

She hesitated.

“Think I’m gonna turn you in?” he said.

She gave him the address of the motel, the name of the town, and the zip code. With each word she spoke, she felt like she was taking off a piece of armor.

After she hung up, she went to the bar and asked the bartender for a glass of water. The combination steak house and beer joint was a spacious place, cool and dark, with big electric floor fans humming away, the heads of stuffed animals mounted on the debarked and polished log walls. “I put some ice and a lime slice in it,” the bartender said.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“You look kind of tuckered out. You visiting here’bouts?”

She gulped from the iced drink and blew out her breath. “No, I’m a Hollywood actress on location. You need a waitress?”

PAM TIBBS WALKED from the dispatcher’s cage into Hackberry’s office, tapping with one knuckle on the doorjamb as she entered.

“What is it?” Hackberry said, looking up from some photos in a manila folder.

“There’s a disturbance at Junior’s diner.”

“Send Felix or R.C.”

“The disturbance is with that ICE agent, Clawson.”

Hackberry made a sucking sound with his teeth.

“I’ll take it,” Pam said.

“No, you won’t.”

“Are those the photos of the Thai women?” she said. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Why are you looking at those, Hack? Say a prayer for those poor women and stop sticking pins in yourself.”

“Some of them are wearing dark clothes. Some of them are wearing what were probably the best clothes they owned. They weren’t dressed for hot country. They thought they were going somewhere else. Nothing at that