“Remember the time you talked the bartender at Dutch Kills into opening that bottle of really expensive bourbon?” Tashi said. “What was that stuff called again?”

“Twenty-three-year-old Pappy Van Winkle,” Jessica said, heaving another file cabinet off the floor. “Bottle probably cost six hundred bucks.”

“And we never got a tab.”

“’Twern’t nothing.”

“I was impressed,” Tashi said. “You always get people to do things like that. People open up to you, trust you, more than me. People are so damn guarded when I talk to them.”

“Please,” Jessica said. “First off, people love to confide in you. You have a wholesome face. And the only reason we drank the good booze that night is because I showed him my tits.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, not there in the bar. But the night before. We hooked up. He was a decent lay, but a much better bartender.”

Tashi started to laugh, rifling through more files, getting pretty good at it. The cards themselves had been well done, typed out in bold black ink, names, dates, and offenses clearly marked. If the stack was in order, she could get dozens done within a few minutes, looking for either Colson or Taylor. Only finding Colson so far. She kept flipping through. Caldwell, Carmody, Chase, Clemons . . . More Colson, Quinn. She picked up a card and started to read it, finding an envelope stapled to the back. Opening the envelope, she pulled out two neatly typed pages, an arrest report with a narrative attached.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Jessica peeked up from the other side of the cabinet, resting her forearms on top, staring at Tashi. The thought suddenly coming to her how ridiculous it was to have gone from their dorm at Columbia to a shithole apartment in Williamsburg to an abandoned schoolhouse in Mississippi in only two years. Tashi flattened the sheet of paper out on top of the cabinet, Jessica now moving behind her and reading over her shoulder. “What?” Jessica said. “You need more light?”

“Shh.”

Jessica turned on the light on her cell phone, chin resting on Tashi’s shoulder blade.

“Holy fucking shit,” Jessica said.

“I know,” Tashi said. “Right?”

“Illegal trespassing,” Jessica said. “On acreage belonging to the Hawkins family.”

“Did you see the date?” Tashi said.

“October 1997,” Jessica said. “Less than a month before Brandon Taylor disappears.”

SEVENTEEN

It was now the fourth of October, a Thursday morning, and the exotic dancer Dana Ray had finally had enough of Bradley Wayne’s shit, shooting him in the right thigh with his own .44 pistol. Quinn sat with Reggie in his F-150 in the rain, drinking coffee and watching the EMTs load Bradley Wayne into an ambulance. Dana Ray had been arrested and taken to jail by their new deputy, Celia Jackson. Quinn cracked the window as the ambulance drove off onto Jericho Road toward the hospital, hoping to hell Maggie wouldn’t be the one to have to deal with Bradley Wayne’s sorry ass next.