Two Girls Down(40)

Vega got it but wanted him to explain it to her. She shrugged dumbly.

“She doesn’t mind the cancer because it’s the last thing he gave her.”

Vega was glad it was raining, and that it was cold, that the water was getting into her socks and wetting the back of her neck and starting to chill her skin. Then it was easier to play the trick on herself. She’d started it a long time ago, on a humid day in South Carolina doing side lunges, the nail on her pinkie toe peeling off. Count the grass blades, smell the cigar smoke. This is not your body, she thought. This is not your pain. When a two-hundred-pound beast of a Mexican with a tattoo on his bald head that read BEBE AMO MAMA threw her across a table in a bar she thought it as she hit the floor: Focus on the sticky-sweet smell of tequila on the boards against your cheek. This is not your body. You don’t feel a thing. Right before she reached for the Springfield.

And she did it again, right now, looking into Evan Marsh’s angry young face, feeling cool drops slide into her bra, let herself shudder. Marsh’s hair was dark and soft, glued to his forehead in wet curls. His eyes were big and round and liquid. This is not you.



“I’m sorry,” said Vega.

“I know,” he said. “So what do you think, Alice? It’s Alice, right?”

His eyes went over her, down to the waist and back up to the face.

“Right.”

“What do you think, you know, in-stinct-ually?”

He drew the word out and managed to make it sound inappropriate.

Some part of Vega wondered what he was getting at. Are we flirting now? she thought. Well, okay, then, Evan Marsh, I will be whoever you goddamn well want me to be.

“I think it’s probably random, someone with an odd sense of humor. That doesn’t mean I won’t look into it.”

“I appreciate it. You know, for my mom.”

He wiped the water off his face and his hand lingered there, over his cheek. Vega looked at his hand and saw a series of fresh scratches, vertical on his forearm. He dropped his hand to his side, and she grabbed him by the wrist. He didn’t pull it back. His skin was warm.

“You have a cat?” she said, turning his hand up, showing him the scratches.

“Roommate’s got two,” he said.

He let his knuckles rest on her wrist, held her eyes. She let go and smiled, tried to picture herself younger and lighter.

“How are you not freezing out here?” she said.

He looked back over his shoulder at the loading dock.

“Hard labor, Alice,” he said. “It’s a bitch.”

“I thought you said your shift hadn’t started yet.”

Evan flinched only a little bit, smiled and started backing up, toward the loading dock. He held his arms out and called, “Guess I’m just warm-blooded.”

—

Cap leaned against his car and watched two kids, a boy and girl, probably four years old or so, turn dizzy spirals on a small steel merry-go-round. One of their mothers sat on a bench texting on her phone and smoking. She seemed young, and it momentarily concerned Cap, made him think, Why aren’t her eyes on the kids?



A blue midsize sedan pulled up across the street, and Junior Hollows stepped out, nodded to Cap and jogged over.

“Twice in twenty-four hours,” he said. “That’s twice as many times as I’ve seen you in the past three years.”

Cap shrugged.

“Unusual twenty-four hours.”

“What’s this about, Cap? You want to explain to me what you have to do with my case?”

“I’m working it.”

“You’re working it? From your rec room?” Junior said, amused.

“Alice Vega hired me. I’m working with her.”

Junior’s smile dissipated, and for a rare moment Cap could see the age lines around his mouth, ironed creases in a napkin.

“You really think that’s a good idea?” said Junior.

“Yeah, I do. The more hands the better.”

Junior laughed and shook his head, weary.

“Would you ever say that as a cop? Would you ever have wanted PIs up in your shit? Come on, Cap.”

“If they could help my investigation, yes, yeah I would.”

“And how can you and Alice Vega help me exactly?”

“I have Kylie Brandt’s diary.”

Junior’s eyes got a little bigger; then he tried to look cool about it.

“Kylie Brandt didn’t have a diary.”

“Says who.”

“Her mother.”

“In what universe are you operating where girls don’t keep secrets from their mothers?”

“We’ve been through Jamie Brandt’s apartment,” said Junior. “It’s the size of a shoebox. We didn’t find a diary.”

“Kylie didn’t keep it at the apartment. It was at a friend’s house.”

“The friend gave it to you?”

“Yes.”

Junior shrugged with cynicism.

“What makes you think the friend didn’t make it up, for the attention?”

“Jamie Brandt’s ex-boyfriend says Kylie told him about it. That’s how we found it.”

Cap watched Junior process it.



“You have it here,” Junior said, nodding to Cap’s car.