Chapter 5: FBI

The coffee machine hissed like a pissed-off cat, spraying steam across the break room counter. 45-year-old special agent Vicki Chen wiped the droplets off her jacket sleeve and wondered, not for the first time, why federal buildings couldn’t afford decent appliances.

She leaned against the chipped laminate countertop, watching the dark liquid dribble into her FBI-issued mug. The precinct was quiet for a Friday afternoon, which meant everyone was either out on a bust or avoiding paperwork. Vicki was in the latter camp.

Her phone buzzed against the counter, not the usual departmental spam, but an encrypted alert. Vicki thumbed the screen open, and the grainy surveillance photo made her coffee taste suddenly sour. A girl, slight as a sapling, wedged between two men in a diner booth. She had the round cheeks of a middle schooler, but the file across the image read Marcy Delgado, 18. The timestamp was three hours old.

Vicki’s fingers tightened around her phone. The text from Deputy Director Hayes blinked back at her—no pleasantries, just the cold efficiency of a man who treated human lives like chess pieces. We just arrested her. I think she is perfect for your task force.

The mug clattered against the sink as she abandoned it, coffee sloshing over the rim. Perfect. Right. Because nothing said “perfect informant” like a traumatized kid with the face of a seventh grader who has the criminal record of someone twice her age. Vicki’s heels clicked down the hallway, echoing off the fluorescent-lit linoleum like a metronome counting down to disaster.

In the interrogation room. Marcy Delgado sat slumped in the metal chair, her sneakers dangling inches above the floor. Her knees are drawn up like a shield. The oversized hoodie swallowed her whole, making her look even smaller than she was.

“Let me guess,” Marcy said before Vicki could even sit down, “you’re here to tell me how this is my big chance to ‘turn things around.’” Her voice was raspy, like she’d smoked a pack a day since puberty. She flicked a glance at Vicki’s badge, then snorted. “FBI? Oh, this is rich.”

Vicki slid into the chair opposite Marcy, the metal legs scraping against concrete. She didn’t bother with the script—no, we can help you; no, this is your lucky day. Instead, she folded her hands on the table and said, “So tell me what you were arrested for.”

Marcy’s smirk faltered for half a second, her fingers picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “You don’t know?”

Vicki watched the girl’s fingers tremble around the loose thread, the bravado leaking out of her like air from a punctured tire. “I know, prostitution,” she said, voice flat.

Marcy’s fingers stilled on the thread. She lifted her chin, but her eyes darted to the corner of the room where the camera’s red light blinked.

“Tell me Marcy, why do you do it?”

“Why do I do it?” She laughed, sharp and hollow. “You want to hear some sob story about Daddy issues? Foster care roulette? Or maybe just the classic, I needed the money.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she swallowed hard, like she could shove the vulnerability back down her throat.

Vicki didn’t blink. “I want to hear your story. Not the script.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and lowered her voice. “That diner booth you were in? Those men weren’t paying for conversation.”

Marcy laughed, a harsh, jagged sound that scraped against the interrogation room’s walls. “No shit,” she said, rolling her eyes so hard Vicki half-expected them to stick. “You’re really sharp, Agent.” Her fingers twitched toward the pocket of her hoodie, like she wanted a cigarette or a knife, maybe both. “What’s next? Going to tell me water’s wet?”

Vicki leaned back in her chair, letting the silence stretch until Marcy started fidgeting again. Then, as casual as a Sunday stroll, she asked, “Do you know a man named Vic?”

Marcy’s sneakers squeaked against the chair legs as she pulled them tighter to her chest. “No, I don’t. Why?”

Vicki tapped a single fingernail against the metal table. Tap. Tap.

Vicki could tell Marcy knew him by the way her fingers curled into fists, by the way her breath hitched for half a second. The girl was a bad liar, and that was almost refreshing. Most of the people Vicki interviewed had practiced their lies in motel mirrors and rehearsed them in the back seats of cop cars. Marcy’s tales were raw, unpolished. She didn’t know Vic. But she knew something.

The tapping stopped. Vicki let the silence coil between them like a live wire. Marcy’s knee bounced under the table, her sneaker tapping a nervous rhythm against the chair leg.

Marcy’s voice was barely a whisper when she finally spoke, her fingers tightening around the frayed edge of her hoodie sleeve. “I don’t know him. But I heard about him.” She swallowed hard, her throat working like she was trying to dislodge a bone. “Girls talk. In the bathrooms at the truck stops, in the alleys behind the motels. You hear things.”

Vicki didn’t move, didn’t even blink. She just waited, letting the silence pull the words out of Marcy like a hook in a fish’s mouth.

“I had a friend who was his.” The words hung in the air, thick as the coffee stains on the interrogation room floor. She picked at the skin around her thumbnail, peeling back a strip until a bead of blood welled up. “One day she disappeared.”

Vicki’s pulse quickened, but she kept her face neutral. “Disappeared how?”

Marcy pressed her thumb against the bead of blood, smearing it across her skin like a failed ink stamp. “Disappeared like poof,” she said, snapping her fingers too close to Vicki’s face. The sound cracked against the cinderblock walls. “No goodbye texts, no ‘Hey bitch, have fun.’ No, just a note she and her best friend Jenny wrote to their dads that they are running away together.” She leaned back, arms crossed, but the way her elbows dug into her ribs betrayed the bravado. “But I don’t think they ran away. I think something happened to them, but the cops never looked for them.” Vicki nodded like she hadn’t heard this story a hundred times before, like she didn’t know exactly how easily girls like Marcy slipped through the cracks, how quietly the world let them vanish. “What was their name?”

“Amanda and Jenny. Jenny was like Amanda’s pimp, but Amanda just sucked off boys for money for the arcade machines. I then found out they were hanging around with Vic.” Marcy’s voice cracked on the second syllable, splitting the name in two like a dry twig underfoot. She wiped her bleeding thumb on her jeans and didn’t look up.”

Vicki exhaled through her nose, slow and measured, as if releasing the weight of every dead-end case she’d ever worked. She kept her palms flat on the table, no sudden movements, no reaching for her pen. Marcy’s knee was still bouncing, her sneaker sole peeling away from the rubber like she wanted to kick her way out of this conversation.

“Have you ever seen Vic?” Vicki asked.

Marcy said, “I saw them one time at the arcade,” and her voice dropped low, like she was afraid the walls might repeat it back to her. “Amanda was playing that dumb racing game, the one where you sit in the little plastic car. Jenny was leaning against the machine, laughing at her.” Marcy’s fingers twitched like she wanted to mimic the way Jenny had flicked her cigarette ash onto the carpet. “Vic was watching from the prize counter. Just ... watching.”

Vicki didn’t move. The interrogation room’s air conditioner rattled to life with a sound like marbles in a tin can. Marcy flinched.

Marcy’s fingers dug into the frayed cuffs of her hoodie, her knuckles whitening as she forced the words out. “After Vic left, this kid, who couldn’t have been older than me, walked right up to Amanda as if he owned her. Didn’t even say hello.” Her sneaker squeaked against the chair leg as she shifted, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Just ... handed Jenny cash. And then—”

Marcy’s breath hitched short, sharp, like she’d been punched in the ribs. “Amanda finished blowing the kid,” she said, her voice fraying at the edges. “Then Vic came in through the back door like he owned the place.” Her fingers twisted the hem of her hoodie into a knot. “Amanda didn’t even look surprised. Just put his big black cock in her mouth. That was the last time I saw Amanda and Jenny.”

Vicki kept her face blank, but her stomach rolled. The silence after Marcy’s words was so complete that Vicki could hear the faint drip of a leaky faucet somewhere down the hallway. She watched the girl’s face, the way her lower lip trembled before she bit down on it, the way her eyes flicked to the door like she expected Vic to walk through it any second.

Vicki slid a paper cup of water across the table. Marcy stared at it like it might be poisoned before grabbing it with both hands, gulping half of it down in one go. Water dribbled down her chin, and she swiped at it with her sleeve, suddenly looking every bit the kid she was. “So what now?” Marcy asked, voice raw. “Are you going to make me some kind of deal? Get me to wear a wire?” Her laugh was brittle. “Or just lock me up and forget I exist?”

Vicki didn’t blink. “No wire,” she repeated, tapping her temple with two fingers. “But I’d like you to become one of Vic’s girls.” She watched Marcy’s face cycle through disbelief, fury, and something raw underneath the look of a stray dog that’s been kicked one too many times to trust a handout.

Marcy’s laugh was the kind that could strip paint off walls. “You want me to do what?” She shoved the paper cup away, water spilling across the table in a slow, spreading stain. “You want me to join Vic’s stable? You do know what he does with his girls, right?” Her fingers hooked into air quotes, the skin around her nails raw from picking. “Or are you FBI types too busy filling out forms to read the actual case files?”

Vicki watched the water ripple across the table toward Marcy’s elbows and watched the girl’s fingers twitch away from the spreading wetness like it was acid. Vicki kept her voice level, the way she’d learned to do when talking jumpy witnesses down from ledges. “Yes, join. But your real identity will be safe.”

Marcy’s sneakers hit the floor with a clatter. “Oh, great,” she spat, throwing her hands up so fast her hoodie sleeve slapped against the table. “How the hell does that work? And keep my identity safe?” Her laugh was jagged enough to draw blood. “You think he’s stupid? You think he won’t check?”

Vicki didn’t flinch. She’d had knives pulled on her with less venom. “We have ways,” she said, and tapped the side of her nose—an old cop habit she’d picked up from a narcotics detective in Detroit. “Medical records. Fake social media. A backstory so solid even your foster mom would swear it’s real.” She leaned in, close enough to catch the sharp tang of Marcy’s fear-sweat under the dollar-store body spray. “You’ll be bait, but the hook’s invisible.”

Marcy’s breath hitched. For a heartbeat, Vicki thought she’d bolt; it wouldn’t be the first time a witness tried to make a break for the interrogation room door. But then the girl’s shoulders slumped, her fingers tracing the water stain on the table like it was a map to somewhere better.

“And if he does check?” Marcy whispered. “If he—” Her throat worked, the words clotting behind her teeth.

“If he checks,” Vicki said, slow as a knife sliding into butter, “he’ll find exactly what we want him to find.” She reached into her briefcase and slid a file across the table. The corner hit the spilled water, the manila envelope darkening as it drank. “This is you, Marcy. For the last six months. Arrest records from three counties. Hospital visits. Even a piss-poor Yelp review from some diner in Jersey where you ‘stole the ketchup.’”

Marcy stared at the waterlogged file, her reflection warping in the wet spots spreading across the manila paper. Her fingers hovered above it like she was afraid it might burn her. “I know I got a record,” she muttered, dragging a fingertip through the condensation on the table. “If I help, will it all go away?” The question hung between them, fragile as the paper-thin ice over a puddle.

Vicki didn’t answer right away. She watched the way Marcy’s thumbnail, still bleeding, tapped against the table in a nervous staccato. “Not all of it, but most will disappear,” Vicki admitted. She leaned forward, close enough to smell the cheap strawberry gum Marcy was chewing to mask the cigarette breath. “But the solicitation charges? The trespassing in Atlantic City? Gone.” She tapped Marcy’s real file with one manicured nail. “This version of you gets sealed. The real you walks away clean.”

Marcy’s laugh punched the air short and bitter, “My prostitution charges gone?” She hooked her fingers around the phrase, twisting it into something ugly. She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand, smearing snot and defiance across her skin.

Vicki didn’t blink. She’d seen this dance before, the way fear masqueraded as anger, how vulnerability armored itself in sarcasm. She reached into her briefcase and slid a glossy brochure across the table.

“This,” Vicki said, tapping the brochure with one unpolished nail, “is your new life.” She flipped it open to reveal a photo image of a grinning girl who looked enough like Marcy to pass a glance—same sharp chin, same dark roots under cheap blonde dye—but with cleaner teeth and brighter eyes. “Lola Gutierrez, age fifteen. Ran away from Albuquerque at thirteen. Got picked up by a traveling carnival for two years before hopping freight trains east.”

Marcy’s nostrils flared as she skimmed the bullet points: skilled at card tricks, allergic to bees, terrified of Ferris wheels, her lips moving silently over the fabricated details. “Carnival?” Marcy spat, shoving the brochure away. “You expect me to know how to juggle or some shit?”

Vicki smirked, pulling out a second folder. “No. But you do know how to lie.” She spread out a series of grainy surveillance shots showing a girl in a sequined halter top hustling three-card monte on a Coney Island boardwalk. “This was Lola. She vanished last summer after winning two grand off an off-duty cop.” Vicki watched Marcy’s pupils dilate at the sight of the girl’s chipped blue nail polish, the same shade she’d scraped off her fingers last week. “You’ll be her ghost.”

Marcy’s fingers twitched toward the surveillance photos, stopping just short of touching the glossy surface. The girl in the pictures, Lola, had the same crooked incisor that Marcy had spent years hiding behind her hand. “You expect me to believe this isn’t some fucked-up trap?” she whispered, tracing the ghost of Lola’s smile with her pinky nail. “That Vic won’t smell Fed on me the second I walk in?”

Vicki leaned back, the chair creaking under her weight. She pulled a pack of gum from her pocket, spearmint, and offered Marcy a stick without breaking eye contact. “Vic won’t smell anything,” she said, unwrapping a piece slowly. “Because you won’t be walking in. He’ll be picking you up.” She popped the gum into her mouth, chewing just once before adding,