The Fed perked up and pointed at her.
“You keep yourself controlled, ma’am. We can discuss ahead of time what you want covered, but you don’t make a sound, and you don’t make yourself known. Yes?”
He reminded Vega of someone, but it was surprisingly not the high school vice principal. There was nothing condescending about the tone, only firm and informative. Like a stern museum docent: Stand right behind this piece of tape, please. And do not touch a thing.
—
For the first time that day, Cap noticed there was a ripe smell coming off Bailey, like something fermenting, not entirely unpleasant. She had not been bathed and was in a frayed gown with sleeping tigers printed on it, sitting on her mother’s lap on the edge of a bed. Even though she was slight, she was still about fifty pounds and four feet tall, and Jamie struggled to hold her but showed no sign of letting go, one hand around Bailey’s thigh, pulling her legs into place, the other on Bailey’s head and hair. Bailey leaned her head on Jamie’s shoulder, the tips of her toes grazing the floor.
The CPS rep was young and named Krista. Cap remembered her a little from when he was a cop; there were only so many social workers in the county dispatched to do the uncompromising work of child abuse investigation. She blended in, though, with all the human services professionals he knew—mostly women, smart and overworked, usually with clothes that didn’t fit quite right, slacks and cardigans bought on sale.
The pediatrician, a stocky woman in jeans with a string of tiny hoop earrings on one earlobe, had just completed a basic head-to-toe exam on Bailey, confirmed the EMT’s diagnosis of mild dehydration, found no broken bones, but there were two small bruises and irritation around her right wrist where she’d possibly been tied up.
Cap watched as Krista tried to broach the topic of a rape kit, but since getting Bailey back Jamie had run the bases of Gratitude and Fragility and was now tagging Adamant and Pissy, or doing the best she could in her state.
“We’re at risk of losing any possible evidence of that type of activity,” Krista said, speaking as formally as she could, Cap sensed, so the adults would understand but the meaning might go over Bailey’s head.
“She don’t need it,” Jamie whispered, her voice thrashed from the tubes. “She told me they didn’t touch her like that.” She said gently into Bailey’s hair, “They touch you like that?”
Bailey shook her head sleepily.
“She may not remember for some time everything exactly as it happened,” Krista said, more quietly. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”
That caught a thread for Jamie. She considered it. Then she turned to Cap, her eyes heavy.
“What do you think?” she whispered, pointing at him with her chin.
Krista and the pediatrician looked at him, and he thought he could see a glint of Bailey’s visible eye peeking out from Jamie’s neck too.
“Well,” he said, “how recent does the activity have to have been in order to show up in the kit?”
Krista shrugged, said, “Depends. Certain physical elements degrade obviously. But bruising…scratches.”
“I looked at her,” said Jamie, more helpful now. “When she used the bathroom, she looked fine. Everything looked normal.”
“Sure,” he said. “I think what Krista’s saying is there are some things we can’t see, right?”
Krista nodded.
“But,” Cap said with a small cough. “I think the odds are that there has not been this type of activity, committed by these particular suspects.”
Krista opened her mouth to speak, and Cap held his hands up in humility and kept talking.
“I’m not saying it’s not possible. Just saying from our investigation, me and my partner’s, these suspects—”
He paused, stopped himself from saying “didn’t want her for that” because it sounded crude in his head.
“Had other goals,” he finally said.
Krista almost spoke again, then closed her mouth and gave a tight little smile.
“But if we’re ready for some questions,” Cap said, looking to Jamie, “we can, I hope, get some more information. Right?”
Jamie pressed her nose against Bailey’s head.
“Mr. Caplan’s gonna ask you questions now, okay?”
Bailey brought her face out of Jamie’s neck and leaned back on her.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay with it.”
Then she smiled at him.
Cap smiled too. The more he looked at her, the more he thought she was a gorgeous kid, the more he wanted to do things that would make her happy.
“Okay,” said Cap, tapping the Record button on the DVR. “So can you tell me what happened last Saturday morning at Ridgewood? After your mom went to Kmart?”
“Like, right after?” she said.
“Yeah, right after,” said Cap. “Your mom gets out of the car. What do you and Kylie do?”
He watched Jamie’s eyelids twitch and nearly shut, like hairs were being removed from her head one by one.
Bailey, however, had the advantage of youth and did not yet view her ordeal as a tragic story. For her it was merely one thing after another, which, if her recollection of events didn’t fuse together, would be very helpful for Cap.
She told him everything, and her voice was high and thin, no real dip or modulation through the story of their leaving the mall and getting into the car, stopping for Blizzards at Dairy Queen on the way to the Macht cabin, even when she admitted to getting scared and missing Jamie, even when McKie pushed her into the kitchenette roughly because she was in his way. It was only when she got to the part detailing the realization that her sister was leaving with Evan Marsh, how she had grabbed and scratched his hand and wrist trying to hold on to him to make them stay; it was just when she was left with Dena and McKie, when she realized it was getting dark outside, that she started to cry in front of Cap just like she had in front of the strangers who had kidnapped her.
—
Vega swayed forward and back on her feet like rocking chair legs, the painkillers still suppressing whatever receptors they were meant to suppress in her central nervous system. She could sense the medication ebbing, though, as she pricked her cuticles with her thumbnails and felt startled when the spike of skin separated. She stood on one side of a grimy curtain between a vacant bed and an old heart rate monitor, the Fed and Junior on the other side of the curtain with McKie, who was cuffed to the bedrail and not in the greatest mood. Vega swore she could smell him too, the same scent that hung in the cabin—something gamey and just beginning the process of decay.
They had started nicely enough, the Fed lobbing plain questions, McKie saying yes and no like a good dog, but then it turned quickly into McKie playing pin the tail on the bad guy, who was Evan Marsh of course, McKie and Dena having been victims of unfortunate circumstances.