Two Girls Down(36)

But this girl wasn’t like that; she seemed younger than ten, smelling faintly of baby powder. Kylie is this age too, he thought, but she seemed older somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on it, so he stopped, focused on this pale girl in front of him.

“How old are you now?” he said, like he was any family friend.

“Ten,” said Cole, soft and airy.

“Ten’s big. When will you be eleven?”

“August sixteenth.”

“It’ll be here before you know it. When my daughter was ten, she had about twenty of those Webkinz—you have any of those?”

“Yeah,” said Cole, her face splitting into a smile. “I have the cocker spaniel because we can’t have a real one.”

Cap laughed.

“Well, that’s the next best thing. A lot easier to take care of,” he said.

He looked up to Mrs. Linsom, who laughed with some relief.

“Can I ask you a question about Kylie?” he said then. “You’re friends with her, is that right?”

Cole nodded.

“You know her mom’s working really hard to find her and her sister, right? And that we’re helping her?”

Nod.

“You can do a lot to help us, Cole. All you have to do is tell the truth, okay?”

Nod.

“Good. Okay, did you guys have any games you liked to play together?”

Cole scrunched up her face.



“Like video games?”

“Sure. Or other kinds of games, like pretending to be in a club.”

Cole looked up at the ceiling.

“A club,” she said.

Mrs. Linsom leaned forward in her chair.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Caplan, what do you mean?”

“I think Cole knows what I mean,” said Cap. “Cole, did you have a club with Kylie? Just the two of you?”

“Um,” said Cole, now looking at the floor.

“Cole?” said Mrs. Linsom, facing her. “Answer Mr. Caplan. This is very important.”

“It’s a secret, though,” said Cole.

“Cole, this is to help Kylie. I promise she won’t be mad if you tell,” said Cap.

Cole let out a small breath.

“We had a Secret Journal Club. We wrote down our secrets in journals and put them in a hiding place.” Then she turned to her mother and said urgently, “We didn’t even tell each other what was in them. We were supposed to keep it secret till we died or got married.”

“Cole, where are they? The journals. We need to see Kylie’s,” said Cap.

Cole turned to him with heavy eyes and pointed out the picture window.

They all followed her through the kitchen gleaming with appliances and clean countertops, through the back door, across a small paved patio, and into a backyard with short green grass and a cluster of four trees at the rear of the property, overlooking a thin creek.

Cole started running then, toward the trees, her mother behind her. Cap and Vega stayed on the patio, next to the grill island made of stucco and stainless steel.

“It’s in the tree,” said Vega.

“Huh,” said Cap.

They watched as Cole kneeled, reached into a hollow in the second tree from the left, and pulled two spiral notebooks out. Mrs. Linsom said something to her that Cap couldn’t make out. Cole’s face dropped, and Mrs. Linsom pulled her back to where Cap and Vega stood.

“Go ahead,” said Mrs. Linsom.

“This is Kylie’s,” she said, and she handed Cap the notebook with the baby-blue cover. It had three heart-shaped stickers at the top and frayed edges.



“And what else?” said Mrs. Linsom.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell sooner,” she said, and her lips started to turn down.

Cap squatted a bit so he could look her in the eye.

“Don’t be sorry. You just helped Kylie a lot. Thank you.”

“Do you need mine too?” Cole said, holding out the other notebook, with a pink cover.

“You can keep that one secret, what do you say?”

Cole smiled, held the notebook to her chest, and left, walked toward the house.

“I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Linsom, looking at both of them. “I had no idea. The police just asked general things—if Kylie had said anything to her about running away, things like that.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs. Linsom. She didn’t know we would want to know. And there might not be anything in here, but we have to take a look.”

Mrs. Linsom nodded and then something caught her attention from the front of the house, and her smile dissipated.

“Daddy’s home for lunch!” Cole yelled from inside, more alarmed than happy.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Linsom. “My husband. Excuse me.”

She hurried inside. Cap turned to look at Vega, raised his eyebrows. She gave a small shrug, nodded toward the house. They went.

Cap saw Mrs. Linsom talking in a hushed voice to a tall man in a white shirt and tie, suit jacket over his arm, laptop bag in the other. His face was tense, turning red under blond eyebrows and thinning straw-colored hair.

Mr. Linsom turned and saw Cap, put on a businessman smile, and went to meet him, hand extended.

“Press Linsom,” he said, confident.