MY OWN WEDDING ring was bagged up with my street clothes in the jail lockup, but throughout my afternoon work shift, I could feel it squeeze around my finger like the phantom pain of an amputee. I stabbed at the keys on my computer in hot frustration. I’d been incarcerated for six weeks, and none of my get-out-of-jail-free strategies was working. If David couldn’t be found, I couldn’t prove that the stack of résumés had been planted. My motion for expert funding had been denied, but more to the point, it hadn’t triggered the ADA to look more closely at CDMI’s video footage.

This was the course I’d fixed on from the moment I realized my credibility was shot. They weren’t going to believe anything I told them outright, so I would drop hints for them to pick up. If they thought they’d stumbled on the truth on their own, they’d believe it. But they weren’t picking up on anything. My strategy wasn’t working.

I shut down the computer at the end of my shift. Jingjing had never returned to her desk that afternoon, and when I trudged back to our cell, she wasn’t there, either. My letters to David were still strewn across my bunk. I stared at them, wondering where Jingjing was, wondering where David was, my thoughts spinning furious somersaults until I finally threw myself down on my bed. I buried my face in the envelopes until the ink ran with my tears.

I didn’t hear Jingjing return, but I felt her arms around me and heard her voice crooning softly, “I miss you, too. Big-time. But we still be friends. I write you letters every day.”

I rolled over and looked up at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I tell you my phone number and you call me. We talk same as here.”

I wiped my tears. My hands came away streaked with blue ink. “You’re leaving?”

It took me a few minutes to pull the story from her and piece it all together. The government had decided that Jingjing’s testimony would not be necessary at the traffickers’ trials. Her material witness order was vacated, and she was free to go, with the government’s gratitude.

“But what about ICE?”

“My boyfriend already coming to get me. I be gone before ICE know I free.”

“What about the boss men?”

She grinned. “I no worry no more.” It seemed that the government had filed its witness list, and Jingjing’s name wasn’t on it. She wasn’t a threat to the traffickers anymore. She was only a missing asset, and she intended to stay missing. “I worry only for you, my friend,” she said sadly.

Every time I thought I’d reached the bottom of my life trajectory, something came along to remind me I could fall further. Now here I was, being pitied by a onetime sex slave. I forced a smile. “Don’t you worry about me,” I said, and gave her a farewell hug before I got up to help her pack her things.