Out of instinct I flipped it to the back, where there was a zigzag of lightning above Ben Franklin’s head, traced in blue pen.The tears caught in my lashes. I unfolded the note. Two words: I SEE.

JANES 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6

AFTER THEY ARE FOUND, THERE is light. Bright, harsh, white like Heaven in movies. There are cameras, a battery of flashes. A large rectangle of police tape is drawn around the marsh and the Sunset Motel. There is no breeze that day. For once, the grass is somber, still, without its usually whispery shush-shush-shush. The marsh is filled with a quiet like the penitent silence inside a church. Without the wind, the flies are worse. Detectives and coroners are constantly slapping them away, swearing under their breath. Their boots slosh through the soft muck. Three of the men who report to the scene must step away to get sick. It’s the smell. The decomposed flesh. The open eyes, staring, imploring. The vulnerability of those bare feet. The splayed hands, asking for alms. Asking for more than what they got.

All summer there have been questions in the air and the women seem to have the answers. What kind of place is Atlantic City? What is it meant to be now? A ruined dream? A tumbled-down sand castle buffed away by the tide? A nightmare?

A coroner leans over Jane #6. “Who did this to you?” he whispers. But it is one more thing sealed behind all their lips like a secret.

A dozen gloved hands touch the women. The investigation is doomed from the beginning. They will never find the man, though some of the police sketches circle his likeness—the set of his jaw, the blades of his cheekbones—yet none of them capture the pale glass of his eyes. The city won’t treat the cases as the work of one person—pressure from the politicians, from the casinos; the words serial killer will scare off whatever tourists are left. And so they investigate each woman as her own crime, her own case, isolated from the rest. Having lain there, sisterly, so close, for so long, the women bristle at the absurdity. They thought they had seen everything this city could do to them, but even now they can still be surprised.

The other girls from the streets leave flowers, plush bears, little crosses made of plywood. But after three days, the offerings are rain-drenched and faded. The crosses tilt in the muck. In a few weeks, they’ll be washed away by the September storms that drive against the coast, hurricanes thrashing up from warmer seas. Lost.