She paused, stretched her neck and closed her eyes, like she was working out a crick. Then she continued quickly, as if she’d thought about it many times, “Was the worst year any person could have. If you told us we’d have to go through it again, we’d say we want death instead. And we’d pick the worst kind of death too—whatever they do in the Middle East where they bury you and throw rocks at your head? We’d take that over living through that first year again. Do you understand?” she said to Cap.
He nodded.
“So a year ago, a hundred fifty thousand dollars shows up in our checking account. Toby says it must be a bank mistake; we should go down to our branch and tell them. But I said, let’s wait a couple of days. You know why I said that?”
She was pleased about asking them, like a teacher who can’t wait to tell the kids the answer to a question that seems difficult but is really very obvious. She knows they’ll all slap their foreheads and make googly eyes. How could we have missed that?
“Because the night before I had a talk with God. And I was real angry about things. I told Him I was done with Him and done with Toby and the kids and done with this whole…”
She sneered as she searched for the words.
“Stupid little life, and He could fucking have it back.”
She took a breath, her mouth relaxing.
“And next morning, I wake up, Toby tells me about the money. And I think, maybe that’s all He could do right now to make it up to us, but it’s a decent start.”
She rested a second, folded the glasses in her lap. She was crying, that is, tears were leaking from her eyes, but she was making no sounds. She didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“I’m not dumb,” she said firmly. “I know God didn’t send the wire from heaven. He just pulled some strings is all.”
“No one thinks you’re dumb,” said Cap. “But I have to ask—did you consider that whoever sent this money could have something to do with Sydney?”
“Yeah. Sure we considered it. Then we un-considered it. Who gives a reverse ransom?” she said, aggravated.
“Who knows,” said Cap. “We have to ask these questions, even if they don’t make sense.”
“So you didn’t feel any responsibility at all to report the money to anyone?” said Junior, a little too harshly.
“Hey—” Erica said, pointing at him, ready for a fight.
Toby reached over and took his wife’s hand, held it.
“Listen,” he said, quieter than anyone had been so far. “We have two other kids. Our boy just now stopped having night terrors. He has regular nightmares, but at least he doesn’t get out of his bed and scream. Our daughter still draws Sydney in family pictures.”
Now he removed his glasses, pulled out a tail of his shirt and wiped the lenses.
“When we got the money, we said, Okay, a little justice after nothing. We’re still looking for Syd,” he said. “We still take the tips; once a week we talk to the police and the FBI agent who ran the case. But we have other kids. We have to keep living. It’s like you can still survive without an arm, right, or a lung? And that’s what we’re doing; it’ll never be as good as it was, but we have to keep going because we don’t want to lose anything else.”
He was crying now, tears rushing to the tip of his nose and dripping off the edge until he pinched it.
“Are we in trouble?”
“We didn’t steal that money, Toby,” Erica snapped. Then to herself, “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Toby brought the heels of his hands to his eyes and sobbed into them. Erica stared at Cap and Junior disgustedly. Like a teacher again, except the one who keeps you after school, pissed and disappointed.
Just look at what you did.
—
Vega was five miles from Denville. She gave up trying to get Cap on the phone, figured she was going to see him soon enough. At every stoplight, she sent emails to the Bastard, opened up tab after tab on the Internet, reading. Professional biographies, a wedding announcement. LinkedIn, Facebook, the Patriot-News, the Philadelphia Inquirer. Houses bought and sold.
The Bastard was churning out social media intel as fast as he could type and double-click, but the next layer—the bank statements, the credit reports, the property deeds—would take him some time, an hour or two, which might as well have been days to Vega’s mind.
Houses bought and sold.
She pulled over and searched her Recents on her phone, pressed a contact, let it ring. Maggie Shambley picked up after four.
“Hello? Miss Vega?” she said, her voice heavy with sleep. “What’s happening?”
“Hi, sorry to wake you, nothing new yet, but do you know if there’s a kind of master list of residential properties, who buys and sells, like a chain of custody? Is that public information?”
“Um,” said Maggie, gathering thoughts. Vega pictured her sitting up in bed, putting on a pair of glasses. “Well, when someone applies for a license to alter a property, or a place is up for foreclosure, usually anyone could access that information. But just buying, selling, no; you have to be a licensed broker or representative of the buyer/seller to be able to search a guide like that.”
“But there is a database like that, with houses bought and sold and the owners’ names?” Vega said, watching her breath form short, cold puffs.
“Sure, hon, there’s quite a few.”
“Can you search by the buyer’s name?”
“Yeah, you can search by name, city, whatever you want. Miss Vega, does this have something to do with the girls?” Maggie said.
“I think it does, ma’am,” said Vega. “Can you look up a name for me right now?”
Maggie said yes, put Vega on mute while she started up her laptop and logged in to her account.
“Okay. What’s the name?”
Vega told her.
She listened to Maggie type, the definitive tap of the Enter key. She stopped typing as she read.
“Looks like they really like to buy and sell houses,” she said finally. “Three in seven years.”
Vega thanked her and hung up, put the car in Drive as her thoughts spun thread after thread. Then she pulled out and punched the gas, houses blurring past, all their garage and porch lights on and their million tragedies inside.
—
Cap walked out with Junior at a quarter after two, leaving the skeleton crew behind, Em in charge, pounding Red Bulls and watching video footage from the strip mall. Traynor and the Fed and the Fed’s boss had gone to their home and hotel to sleep. Only five news vans were still outside, reporters leaning against the doors and in camping chairs, cameramen half-asleep with their gear propped on their shoulders.
“Hey Cap, any news?” one of them called.
“Captain Hollows, how about an update?”
“Nothing now, guys,” said Junior, waving like a politician. “Just getting a couple hours’ sleep.”
They fired off a few more questions, to which Junior said, “Tomorrow, guys, tomorrow.”
“What time you coming in?” said Cap as they reached the lot.
Junior looked at his watch, yawning.
“Seven, I guess. We got the Feds on the burner account. In the morning we can go have a chat with Ashley Cahill’s father.”
Cap nodded and they said good night, and Cap was starting to walk away when he heard Junior call his name. Cap turned, saw that the captain wore a queer expression, like he had drunk a beer too fast and was trying not to burp.