Jamie tightened up her lips.
“No, everyone fucking asks me that. No. I mean, maybe I piss people off here and there because I say what I think, you know. I don’t like to beat around the bush.”
“Can you recall the last time you did that? Piss someone off?” Vega said.
Jamie coughed out a laugh.
“Take your pick, right?” she said. “Well, let’s see, last week I flipped off a guy at an intersection and he yelled that he was gonna take my license number. I called him a pussy.”
Cap smiled and said, “The other day I told a woman who cut me off to suck my dick, excuse me. I haven’t said those words since maybe the seventh grade.”
Jamie laughed.
“I know this might be a tough one—believe me I know, I have a sixteen-year-old—did Kylie have a crush on anyone? A teacher or an older boy she might have come in contact with?” Cap said.
“The girl’s a natural-born flirt,” said Jamie, and there was just a little pride in her voice. “I told her she should go into business school; she could sell space heaters to Egyptians. But I don’t know about anyone in particular.”
“What other men does she see on a regular basis?” said Vega. “Besides your family and your boyfriend, and teachers?”
“There’s a kid lives in our complex named Sonny—he’s probably fifteen, sixteen. He’s always sweet to her,” said Jamie. “But I seen him since Saturday walking around—his mom dropped off a crumb cake. He doesn’t have the girls stashed in his closet.”
Jamie shook her head, almost angry. Cap thought he should ask for the kid’s phone number and address, not to put him on the list but to get Jamie’s mind off the image of the girls safe and sound a hundred feet away.
“What about ex-boyfriends?” said Vega. “Men before Darrell.”
“Before Darrell,” Jamie said, spacey; then she seemed to focus again. “Before Darrell there was Chaney. Alex Chaney. I saw him about a month ago actually.”
Vega glanced at Cap.
“Where’d you see him?” said Cap.
“I ran into him at Valley Diss. We kinda argued.”
“What did you argue about?”
Jamie made a sound like pssh and said, “I told him he’s a fucking druggie without a job. He said I’m an uptight bitch.”
“What kind of drugs he do?” said Vega.
“He likes Vicodin and Perc, oxy when he can get it.”
“He addicted, in your opinion?”
“Wasn’t when I met him,” said Jamie. “Then he got laid off and started hanging out with some other losers, and they started snorting that shit. He stopped wanting to hang out on the weekends. He’d show up at my place Sunday morning looking like a stray dog. And, you know, I like to smoke a joint sometimes but I don’t want fucking junkies in my house.”
“The girls like him?” said Vega.
Jamie thought about it.
“Yeah, they did. Before he got into the shit, he worked at Roma Pizza for a while and used to bring them stuff from there, like garlic bread and cannolis, stuff like that. I think Kylie had a little crush on him. She was upset when I cut him off.”
“She comfortable with hugging him, you think?” said Cap.
“Sure,” Jamie said. She looked at them. “You don’t think he took them.”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“No way, man. I mean, he’s a loser, but a kidnapper? I don’t think so.”
“How’d he look when you saw him last month?” said Vega. “Physically.”
Jamie shook her head in disgust. “Skinny, his hair was all long and greasy. I told him he looked like a homeless person.”
She leaned her head against the back of the couch and yawned. The sedatives were hitting, Cap knew. Then her head popped back up suddenly.
“And his breathing was funny, like he’d just run up a flight of stairs.”
Cap looked at Vega, and there it was again.
Click.
—
At one o’clock, Jamie fell asleep on Cap’s couch. Cap covered her with one of Nell’s comforters and gestured to the door leading from the office to the house. Vega went through, and Cap led her into the kitchen.
Cap’s house was so impossibly cozy it could make a person depressed. The living room was filled with plush worn furniture, woven rugs on the creaking floors and framed photos on a brick mantel over the fireplace. The kitchen was cream-colored, retro speckled chairs at the table and a variety of magnets in the shapes of vegetables on the fridge. Vega peered toward the stairs and thought about what was up there, two or three little bedrooms, beds next to the windows so the sun could wake you up.
“Sorry about the mess,” Cap said.
It was only then that Vega noticed the stacked dishes in the sink, the dust balls in the corners. She shook her head.
Cap took two bottles of water from the refrigerator and offered one to Vega. She took it.
“So you think Chaney’s something?” said Cap.
“Could be,” said Vega.
“Come on,” said Cap. “Her gut is right—junkies don’t become kidnappers overnight. They don’t have the energy, for one thing.”
“If they run out of money for drugs they’ll find the energy. If he’s out of breath after having a conversation, maybe he was in the starting stages of withdrawal. Doesn’t get more desperate than that.”
Cap squinted. “Then where’s the ransom, the call. If he needs money so badly, why hasn’t he asked for it yet?”
“Maybe he’s panicking. Having second thoughts and stuck.”
“Or,” said Cap.
“Or,” said Vega.
Cap pinched the bridge of his nose. “Or he doesn’t want anything from Jamie.”
“There’s a lot of sick fucking people out there,” Vega said, her voice flat. “He could want drugs or money from one of them.”
“And wants to trade two little girls for it,” said Cap.
“Worth a visit, right?”
“Of course,” said Cap.
He placed a fist over his mouth and yawned.
“First thing tomorrow, then.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“It’s 1:30 in the morning,” said Cap.
Vega stared at him.
“I’m guessing you don’t sleep a lot,” he said.
“No.”
They did some more looking at each other; Vega could see the fatigue in his brow, his eyes.
“Okay,” he said hoarsely, then cleared his throat. “Just have to stop for coffee first. You drink coffee?”
Vega shrugged. “I like a hot tea.”
5
They were in a neighborhood called Mapleton, on a block where the houses were all narrow clapboards that appeared to be leaning slightly to the left or right. Cap parked across the street from Jamie’s ex-boyfriend’s last known address. The house was a sallow color with brown trim, and there was a window with a curtain drawn on the ground floor, a light on inside.
“Somebody’s home,” said Cap.
They got out of the car and crossed the street. Cap could hear music inside, classic rock, Allman Brothers or something, what Nell would call “old white guy music.” Cap pressed his thumb on the scuffed doorbell button and heard no sound. He and Vega glanced at each other, and he knocked. There was movement inside, footsteps.
“You’ll talk first, I assume?” said Cap. It had been a long time since he’d discussed tactics with a partner.