She opened the door to the bathroom slowly and stepped into the hallway, heard Chaney chattering and Caplan’s low tones.
Down the hall was a door with a light on inside. Vega squinted her eyes, saw shadows moving around in the crack under the door. Something was in the room. Here comes Little Bad, said Perry in her head. Vega slid her boots off and walked in her socks on the carpet down the hall. She pulled the doorknob toward her and tried to turn it. Locked. Vega leaned her head back and heard Chaney and Caplan still, Chaney’s voice starting to rise.
She took from her wallet a Costco rewards card that never had belonged to her but that was long and flexible, with beveled laminated edges, and slid it directly in between the wall and the door, right above the doorknob.
She left it there, padded back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and turned the water on in the sink. Then quickly back to the door with the light and the shadows, held the card tightly between her fingertips, wedged it next to the lock and jimmied it.
The door popped opened, and a black cat with white toes jumped off a table and ran out, sliding against Vega’s shins on the way. Vega was about to lean down and grab the thing by the back of the neck but then she saw what was on the table in the room and thought, Let the girl run.
—
Cap saw the cat first. It lingered in the doorway for a moment and then curled around the frame into the room.
Chaney was saying: “I don’t have a fucking BlackBerry, okay? I don’t keep track of shit—”
Then he saw the cat and stared at it, froze and pointed to the hallway.
Cap held his hands out, didn’t know what the big deal was with the cat except that it managed to look fed in a druggie’s house.
“Where—” Chaney started to say.
Then Vega came in, taking big strides, and threw something at Chaney’s head. It hit him and bounced to the floor, sounding like a maraca. Cap finally got a good look at it—a sizable prescription pill bottle.
“What the fuck?!” Chaney said, crouching in shock.
Cap looked at Vega expectantly but said nothing. Vega picked the bottle up and showed it to Cap, then shoved it in Chaney’s face and pulled him down to the futon by the shoulder.
“He’s not just a junkie,” she said. “He’s a dealer. He’s got a room back there with six boxes of pills.”
“That’s trespassing!” said Chaney to Cap.
“You let us in, Mr. Chaney,” said Cap.
“The fuck you care I got oxy—you said you weren’t cops.”
“We’re not,” said Cap. “But we can call them right now and draw them a little map to your back room.”
“When’s the last time you saw either Kylie or Bailey Brandt?” Vega said, standing over him, very close.
Chaney panted and wiped his mouth.
“Okay,” said Chaney. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I saw Kylie about a month ago. She took a bus here after school. When Jamie and I ran into each other she was in the car and saw me.”
“Why did she come to see you?” said Cap.
Chaney sighed.
“She’s a kid. She said she missed me and wanted me and Jamie to get back together. It’s just ’cause they don’t have a father, you know?”
He looked up at Vega, then at Cap.
“Look, when I heard about it, that someone took them, it broke my heart, okay? They were real cute kids.”
“You got a little scared too, right?” said Cap. “Thought people might come around and ask you questions.”
“I don’t want any trouble.”
“What did you do when Kylie showed up at your door?” said Cap.
“I took her to her grandparents’ place. Drove her myself.”
“And you didn’t think to call Jamie Brandt and let her know her child was here?” said Vega.
Chaney shook out his shoulders.
“Kylie begged me not to tell. And no one knew she was gone. The old man watches her in the afternoon. She made up some story to tell him. And I…”
Chaney paused.
“I had clients here. People get freaked out they see a kid.”
“Makes them less likely to buy illegally obtained opiates,” said Cap.
He shook his head again.
“I didn’t have anything to do with those girls disappearing. Not a fucking thing.”
Cap kept the stern look on his face for Chaney’s sake, glanced at Vega, whose wide, steady eyes confirmed what he already thought, that this asshole was telling them the truth.
Then Cap said, more softly, “Do you remember what you talked about in the car? Did she tell you anything that stands out?”
Chaney leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling for a moment.
“You know, we already had all the drama back here, so I wasn’t going to give her any more shit about running away. She told me she finally decided she wanted to be an actress. Like she’s been thinking about this a long time, right? She’s finally decided on a career.”
He thought about it and laughed. Cap smiled too. How serious they could get.
“I asked her if she told her mom that, and she said no, that it was a secret and she was only telling certain people.”
Chaney paused. He put his hands behind his head as he thought of something.
“She was telling me she and a girlfriend, they had this little club—what she call it? ‘Secrets Club’ or something. They wrote down their secrets together in diaries.”
“You remember the friend’s name?” said Cap.
“Nah, man, it was a month ago. It was like a boy’s name though, I remember that. I asked if it was a boy. She said no and looked at me like I’m crazy.”
He nodded at Cap.
“You know the way a girl looks at you like you’re crazy?”
Cap nodded. Because he knew.
—
In the car Vega was silent, glanced at Cap’s face in profile. She could tell he was trying not to yawn, his lips pinched closed, eyes watering. As soon as they got to the stoplight on the corner of Chaney’s block, and Vega was sure there was no way Chaney could see them through his busted curtains, she spoke.
“We said I was going to talk,” she said quietly.
“What?” said Cap.
She didn’t say it again because she knew he had heard her the first time. It was a bossman thing. They made you say it twice so then you sounded like you were complaining. Even if they weren’t doing it consciously.
He sighed.
“I thought I would jump in. With guys like that you have to keep the pressure on and not give them time to think up a lie.”
Vega didn’t answer. At the next stoplight, she watched him yawn into his fist toward the window, knew she had about one full second.
She reached over, pushed the shift to Park and turned the engine off, let the key dangle.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cap said, looking in his mirrors, disoriented.
“I know guys like that too,” she said, raising her voice just a little. “This is my case, and you’re the special guest star. So when we say I talk first, I fucking talk first.”
“Hey, you know what,” said Cap, starting the car. “You’re used to working alone, I get it. But you have to trust me a little bit. I saw an opening, and I took it. And we still got him to talk. Both of us fishing, you on recon and…gentle assault.”
“Trust doesn’t matter,” she said. “We just have to agree.”