Two Girls Down(102)

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.

“You’re really fucking good at this,” Junior said to him.

It was earnest and humbled, the burp face. Cap put that in his mental photo album of Junior’s unreadable facial expressions. Cap thought of a million gay jokes he could make. Actually just a couple, along the lines of Hey, you want to buy me a drink since you’re getting so emotional, you know, the way gay guys do?

But he didn’t. Instead he said, “So are you, Junior.”

Junior nodded, and then they both got in their cars and took off, and Cap headed for home. He was a block away when he realized he hadn’t turned his phone back on since talking to the McKennas. He said, “Shit,” pulled his phone out and pressed the power button, sorted through the mess of his thoughts while the white apple glowed.

Erica McKenna was right, ultimately; who the hell would give a reverse ransom? If not an outright payment for a human being’s life, which Cap was sure it wasn’t, then why else? A sociopath would never pay out money as retribution. He would feel like he deserved those girls.

So maybe the person who took Ashley Cahill and Sydney McKenna, and maybe the person who still had Kylie, the moneyman, maybe he knew he had done the wrong thing and felt bad about it. The only thing stronger than love or hate or fear was guilt.

His phone vibrated repeatedly, and Cap watched while the screen filled with texts and missed calls, all from Vega. The texts were all the same message: “Call me.”



He tapped the phone icon next to her name and then the speaker, and Vega picked up before the first ring went through.

“Where are you?” she said, her lips brushing the mike of her earpiece.

“Just left the station,” said Cap. “What’s going on?”

“Pull over.”

“What? Why?”

“Pull over. Let me talk,” she said, urgent.

Cap pulled over.

“Okay, I’m parked. What is it?”