“We’ll get photos of Brenda Collins and canvass your sister’s neighborhood with them,” Bruxton promised. “We’re going to find her, Lily. I promise.”

He said it as if that would make a difference now.

❖

Jesse and I were mostly quiet on the drive home. I was locked inside myself, drowning in grief. My sister’s face would float in front of my eyes and I would start to choke, trying to draw breath but feeling my lungs burning. The car was freezing because I was smoking again and being trapped in a car with cigarette fumes was too much, even for Jesse. He reached over and squeezed my hand from time to time.

“If it’s any consolation, I know how you feel,” he said at one point.

“How?”

“The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance,” Jesse recited, his voice steady and his eyes on the road. “He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” He glanced at me. “That’s Psalms.”

I nodded. Psalms had gotten it right. “I want Trina Greene to suffer. I want Herrold to suffer. Now I need to find Brenda Collins to make her suffer, too. She’s the only one I can do anything about now.”

“The first two are roastin’ in hell, and the third one might be there too,” Jesse reached for my hand. “Leave it to the Lord. Right now we need to take care of you.”

I knew I was lucky to have such a loyal friend, but all I wanted was for a bottomless pit to engulf me. Jesse’s cell phone rang as we got closer to New York, and he answered it. “Hey. You heard what happened?” Jesse was silent for a long time. “I don’t fuckin’ believe it,” he said finally; I’d only heard Jesse curse like that a handful of times in all the years we’d known each other, and even in my anguished state, I knew something was wrong. “Thanks a lot, Norah.” Norah? Detective Renfrew, of course. “I’ll talk to her, see what she wants to do.”

I waited anxiously, dragging hard on a cigarette, while he got off the phone. “What now? What is it?”

He glanced at me, worry etched into his face. “I’m not sure how much more you can take just now, Lil.”

“Whatever it is, just tell me. Please.”

“They found the cleanin’ lady, Brenda Collins. She’s been in Chicago the past six weeks, got on a bus and ended up back in New York yesterday. Norah said she was hangin’ around your sister’s apartment. They have her at the station now.”