“Fine,” Atlanta says. She knows that one word doesn’t sound fine, and that the very word may be the only one in the English language that everybody says but never means—if you meant it, you’d say good, but when you don’t mean it, you say fine like it’s a joke that everybody’s in on. “Just fine.”

“I want to talk to you about how all this . . . went down.”

“Okay.”

“There’s gonna be some questions, and you might have to talk to a district attorney. Someone may want to coach you about things to say.”

“You telling me to get a lawyer?”

Holger shakes her head. “Not at all. It’s just that this is a big deal. Big operation like this gets busted, there’s gonna be accountability. And a man like Ellis Wayman may seem like some redneck rube, but he’s going to lawyer up in a big way. And those lawyers are going to look at you . . .” Here her voice trails off.

“I’m a troubled witness. Given the things that have happened.”

“Could be.”

“I get that. Well. Whatever y’all need.”

“Thanks, Atlanta.”

Holger asks. Atlanta answers. As honestly as she can tell it. She leaves Guy and Shane out of it. Says she was looking into some missing dogs for a friend. That put her into Bird and Bodie’s orbit. Here she leaves out what they did to her and how she stole Whitey. She mostly just plays it like she was there sniffing for information and when she saw what she saw, she couldn’t abide it—and so she called Holger. It’s a simplified version of the truth, but it works. No real gaps to speak of, long as nobody else tells Holger differently.

When they’re done, Holger nods and says, “You’re a tough little girl.”

“I’m not little.”

“No, I suppose you’re not. Girls grow up faster than ever.”

“I guess we have to.”

“Let’s go get your dog and get you home.”

The way it all happens seems like a nightmare. It’s impossible and unthinkable and yet it happens just the same.

She and Holger walk down past the cubicles and desks of this middling police department and they head to the stairwell—metal door opens, clangs, cement steps down toward the basement.

Holger’s making small talk, something about how there’s an ice-cream place just down the road that has pink bubble-gum ice cream and how she used to love that flavor when she was a girl. Then she starts talking about Teaberry Gum.

Atlanta doesn’t know why they’re talking about it or how they even got onto the subject of ice cream and bubble gum because all of that escapes her head when she hears the gunshot.

The shot, loud. A quick, echoing pop. Just one. From downstairs in the basement.