“Agh. You got me.”
Lars held his breath. His angle on the unknown light outside wasn’t good enough; it could just be a reflection on the glass. So he stuffed the Colorado Air brochure into his pocket — where it would join Springs Scenic (a Cessna 172) and Rocky Vistas (a DHC-3 Otter) — and he hurried to the paneled window, craning his neck for a clearer view—
*
Darby found the dome light button and punched it off.
Darkness again.
Holy shit. She gasped, her heart thudding, her eardrums ringing, full of blood. That had been stupid. Reckless. Dangerous. She’d acted without thinking and allowed herself to be ambushed by a door-activated light bulb.
Still, no one had seen it. No harm, no foul, right?
. . . Right?
The van smelled like stale sweat. It reminded her of a gym locker room. The leather seat cover was clammy under her fingers. A model airplane on the dashboard. The floor was a sea of crumpled yellow Jack in the Box and Taco Bell bags, slimy and transparent with congealed grease. She groped for the center console and opened it — more bulging trash. She’d been hoping for a handgun or something. She wanted to try the glove box, but she knew there’d be another light bulb in there, ready to go off like a tripwire. She couldn’t risk that again.
Inside the door panel, she found the interior locks.
CLICK-CLICK.
The Astro’s rear doors were now unlocked. The cab was separated from the cargo bay with a metal screen, like a Catholic confessional. So carefully, she scooted back outside, retrieved her shoelace slipknot, thumbed the lock pin, and gently shut the driver door with her palms. She could see the building’s window over the van’s hood. She dreaded seeing Lars silhouetted behind the glass — investigating the dome light — but the window was still empty. Just the top of Ed’s head, and part of Ashley’s shoulder, as Go Fish continued.
So far, so good.
Darby crept back along the van’s left side, retracing her steps past the stupid cartoon fox, clambering through heaped snow. She stuffed her shoelace into her jeans pocket; no time to re-lace her shoe right now. She circled the back of the Astro, grabbed the left door handle, and tugged it open.
The girl was inside a dog cage. One of those black, wire-grate ones that can be collapsed for flat storage. This one was sized for a collie, reinforced with a padlock and dozens of knotted zip-ties. She was hunched on her knees because there wasn’t enough room to stand. Her tiny fingers gripped the wire bars like a jail cell. Duct tape was looped around her mouth in clumsy twists.
Darby smelled a damp sourness. Urine.
For a long moment, she couldn’t speak. What could you possibly say? There were no words for this situation. Like swallowing a mouthful of peanut butter, she finally managed to move her lips and say: “Hi.”
The girl stared at her with wide eyes.
“Are . . . are you okay?”
She shook her head.
Well, no shit.
“I’m . . .” Darby shivered under a gust of chilling wind, realizing she hadn’t planned this far ahead. “Okay, I’m going to take the duct tape off your face, so you can talk to me. Is that alright?”
The girl nodded.
“It might hurt.”
The girl nodded harder.
Darby knew it would hurt; it was gummed up into her hair. Lars had wrapped it lazily around her head, and it was the black electrical kind. She reached through the gaps in the dog kennel and found the tape’s seams with her fingernails. Carefully, she peeled off the first loop, and then the second, and as the little girl worked the rest, Darby asked: “What’s your name?”
“Jay.”
“Do you know the man who drives this van?”
“No.”
“Did he take you?”
“Yeah.”
“From your house?” Darby rephrased: “Wait, okay, Jay, where do you live?”
“1145 Fairbridge Way.”
“Where is that?”
“By Costco.”
“No. What’s the name of the city you live in?”
“San Diego.”
This made Darby shudder. She’d never driven to the West Coast before. Lars must have been on the highways for days, with this girl penned up in the back. That explained the fast food trash. She glimpsed more of the van’s interior as her pupils adjusted to the darkness — blankets and rugs heaped to cover the cage. Plywood shelving on the walls, all empty. Coca Cola bottles, the glass kind, jangling on the metal floor. Loose sawdust. Nails. A red gas can with a black spout. Children’s clothing bundled up in white K-Mart bags, although Darby doubted Lars had changed Jay once since he’d abducted her from her hometown. All the way in southern California.
“Right by the Costco,” Jay clarified.
Darby noticed a circular logo on the girl’s shirt, and recognized it — the ball-shaped device from the Pokémon games. A Pokeball, she remembered, from the iPhone app that had briefly taken CU-Boulder’s campus by storm. “What’s your last name?”
“Nissen.”
“Is . . .” Darby rattled the circular padlock securing the kennel door. “Is Jay short for something?”
“Jaybird.”
“No. A longer name. Like . . . Jessica?”
“Just Jay,” the girl said.
Jay Nissen. Age seven. Reported missing in San Diego.
The realization crept up on Darby — this would be on the news. She’d just broken into a man’s car (already technically a crime) and decisions were being made, right now, which would later be recited to a courtroom. Attorneys would nitpick the minute-to-minute details. If she survived, she would have to answer for every single choice she’d made, good and bad. And thus far, all she’d really accomplished was asking the kidnapped girl with her mouth duct-taped shut if she was okay.
Darby had always been awful at speaking to children. Even back to her babysitting days, she’d lacked that maternal instinct. Kids were just messy, belligerent little creatures that stressed her out. She’d often wondered how her own mother could’ve handled her, especially since she’d been unplanned.
Her elder sister Devon had been deliberate, of course. The darling firstborn. But then three years later, along came baby Darby in the wake of a shattering marital split. Divorce paperwork, late rent, and a side of morning sickness. I thought you were the stomach flu, her mother told her once with a crooked grin. Darby never quite knew how to feel about this.
I thought you were the flu.
I tried to kill you with Theraflu.
Now this little abducted girl raised her other hand to grip the kennel, and Darby realized it was bandaged. Jay’s palm was wrapped and sealed with more loops of sloppy electrical tape. Too dark to make out details.
Darby touched it — and Jay flinched away sharply.
“Did he . . . did he hurt you?”
“Yeah.”
Her gut stirred with rage. She couldn’t believe it — how much worse this night seemed to get with each passing second — but she steadied her voice and asked through chattering teeth: “What did he do to your hand, Jay?”
“It’s called a yellow card.”
“A yellow card?”
The girl nodded.