Vega rolled her shoulders one at a time, stretching. Then she spoke.
“It was a girl in the Valley, near L.A. Christy Polo?ez. Twelve years old. Her uncle kidnapped her, put her in a basement, filmed her with three men at a time, four men at a time. Knocked her teeth out so she could give them a smoother ride. She’d been down there two weeks when I found her, real out of it, but I thought it was the drugs they’d given her. Her parents were so happy she was alive that they didn’t care at first that she wasn’t talking in sentences.
“Then they did a press conference. They wanted to thank the city, the police…me.”
Vega paused, rubbed her hands on her pants legs as if she were wiping something off.
“So the press is asking, ‘Christy, how does it feel to be back home?’ and Christy’s just smiling. Smiling, smiling, smiling like a drunk. And everyone’s happy and laughing and being encouraging, you know, because this is a good story for everyone. Everyone likes to see the kids come home. And Christy’s looking at the cameras and starts taking her clothes off, because in her brain, now, and forever, when she sees a camera, that’s what she’s supposed to do.”
Vega stopped, and Cap could tell there was more, but that she was deciding whether or not to tell him.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
Vega sighed.
“Her mother covered her up and took her away. Last I heard they were homeschooling her because she couldn’t function in a regular school. That’s what happens, Caplan, when they’re gone more than a week, two weeks.” She pointed to her head. “Train goes off the tracks.”
“Not unequivocally,” said Cap. “Every case is different.”
She stared out the passenger window now, removing herself from the conversation.
“Vega, everyone’s had a shitty night. They’re all just hitting an emotional wall. We’ve both seen this before,” he said.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Attempt the pep talk.”
“I am not attempting pep talk,” he said. “I am sharing my experience.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Vega.
She wasn’t laughing or even smiling, but she seemed suddenly to have more energy, inspired in some odd way by his sappiness.
As they pulled up to the inn, she checked her phone and said, “So Wilkes-Barre is what, fifty miles?”
“Sounds about right,” said Cap. “What’s in Wilkes-Barre?”
“Dena Macht’s parents,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’ll tell Traynor we’re heading there in the morning?”
“I guess I will,” said Cap, taking a sip of a four-hour-old coffee from a wax paper cup. “Pickup at seven?”
He looked at the time on the dash. 3:06. Vega shrugged.
“Seven-thirty,” she said, and turned and went up the path to the inn, lit on either side by gas lamps for charm purposes.
Cap laughed once and loudly before starting the car.
—
She may or may not have slept. But when it came down to it, did she need to? As long as she was lying down with closed eyes, pretending to be asleep, could a body really tell the difference?
She thought about this while standing on her hands. There was congestion in her nose; she felt the block as she tried to breathe deeply. She gave up and breathed through her mouth. A no-no in yoga. So turn me in, she thought. Call the yoga police.
She heard a bird, but it wasn’t a song, more like an effort at communication: persistent, repetitive, rhythmic. No birds answered him; it was just that one. And the more Vega heard his weird calls the more she swore he was actually speaking English, one word over and over: Here. Here. Here.
She opened her eyes, and there were the girls again, in their white dresses with the black sashes. Vega knew this was not really Kylie and Bailey speaking to her. She knew her mind was feeding her the images, pulling them from horror movies—the Shining twins, the little girl with the braids who kills her classmates, the gang of blond kids with their glowing eyes.
But they sure looked like Kylie and Bailey, even if they were fakes. They looked at each other, at Vega.
“What?” Vega said to them, sweat trickling up her chin, onto her lips.
That’s when Kylie got on one knee and came up close to her face. Vega could feel the warm air of her breath as she spoke:
“You’re probably gonna die today.”
13
Dena Macht’s parents lived out in Wilkes-Barre. Cap drove on a county road, and out the window were woods and farmhouse conversions. How could anyone sleep listening to crickets and cats and a car down the street once a day? Out here you would watch it come and go from your window, anxious, then relieved.
They found the house down a road that was paved but just barely. They parked and could not find a path of any kind, so they walked in the grass toward the house, which had two boxy stories with an A-frame roof. Cap expected to see some chickens or a pig running around in the front yard, but instead of animals there were about fifteen dishwashers, tented under a blue tarp.
Cap rubbed his eyes reflexively, as if the gesture would make him more awake. But he wasn’t. He was on the ropes of consciousness, even after he’d drunk a cup of coffee while he shaved and finished a thermos in the car on the way to Vega’s. He still knew if he closed his eyes for more than a few seconds he would collapse. He felt like a senior citizen even though he knew that forty-one wasn’t old anymore, that lots of men became first-time fathers in their forties, or dated women half their age, went back to school. Allowed themselves to be in love. But not him, and not now.
Vega was showing signs too. She had seemed aggressively youthful back in the old days earlier in the week, energy buzzing off her even while she sat silent in the passenger seat. Now she was moving slowly, head tilted down, weighted.
A woman came through the screen door and stood on the porch, looking at them. Pockmarks lined her cheeks, her eyes clear and blue. She didn’t speak.
Cap stood up straight and said, “Mrs. Macht?”
“Yes. You Mr. Cappan?”
“Caplan, yes. This is Alice Vega.”
Mrs. Macht nodded at them, a little suspicious.
“May we come in for a minute?” Cap said.
She nodded again and went inside, holding the door open.
They followed her. The living room seemed too small for all the furniture, tables and couches and chairs, lining the walls, a rug with woven concentric circles in the middle of the floor that made Cap dizzy.
“Let me get my husband,” Mrs. Macht said.
She stood in a doorway leading to other rooms and yelled.
“Mitch, these folks are here!”
Mrs. Macht did not sit and did not tell them to sit. She crossed her arms and pulled her thick sweater tight across her chest. Then Mitchell Macht came in. He was fat and had a mottled blond goatee on his chin.
He shook hands with Cap, nodded at Vega, and seemed to be out of breath.
“You’re looking for Dena?” he said.
“That’s right,” said Cap.
“She’s staying at my dad’s cabin down Woodgrove.”