Two Girls Down(47)
“She wants to think the kid did it.”
“Maybe the kid did do it,” said Cap, raising his voice. “Maybe he killed them and dumped the bodies in the Beth Hill mine, and we’ve been chasing bullshit for the past two days.”
“We have to go back to Jamie.”
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” said Cap. “Jamie is useless.”
“We can get more detail about Sonny Thomas; we can tell her about the three witness descriptions and Nolan Marsh and see if anything pops. She might be the only person other than the kidnapper who knows where the girls are, and all we have to do is sift through the mud in her head a little bit.”
Vega paused and watched Cap rock side to side, settling in his seat, think it over. He had a little conversation with himself, sighing theatrically and moving his lips, and when he started to shake his head at nothing in particular she knew she had him beat.
—
They climbed the exterior stairs of Jamie’s complex to the second floor, brown boxes of apartments stacked up like kids’ building blocks. Cap saw spiderwebs stringing from the corners of the stucco ceilings to the doorways, graffiti tags here and there. Vega was silent and stoic, and it pissed him off, made him think maybe there was less going on behind the mask as opposed to more. That maybe she wasn’t a natural after all, just some delinquent who’d gotten lucky.
They heard a muted series of thumps coming from inside; it reminded him of when he and Jules couldn’t afford a drum set; Nell would practice on couch cushions and pillows. Then there was the shimmery crack of glass breaking. Cap bounded for the door.
“Jamie?” he said loudly. “Jamie, it’s Max Caplan.”
“It’s open!” she shouted.
Cap opened it, and they came into the living room—a small space with a mismatched couch and chairs, a large tube TV balanced precariously on an oblong table. To the right, the room opened up into a galley kitchen—a counter covered with stacks of glasses and plates, and some cabinets, all open. Jamie was on her hands and knees, holding two semicircles of glass, a thin ribbon of blood spreading on her hand. She stood and went to the sink, dropped the glass pieces with a crash, looking disgusted. She crossed in front of Cap and Vega and nodded at them.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, weird and calm. “You can help me look.”
Her hand fluttered to her hair, pushing strands out of her face, smearing red on her forehead.
“Jamie,” Cap said evenly. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked at her hand, distracted, then shook her head.
“Look for what?” said Vega.
Jamie ripped a paper towel off a roll on the kitchen counter and wrapped it around her palm.
“Anything,” she said. “You found her diary in a goddamn tree. Who knows what else she has here. There’s got to be something somewhere, something about Sonny, something…”
Cap looked at her face, could tell she was thinking, calculating, but there was chaos in it. Like she’d just gotten a concussion and was trying to do trigonometry.
“The police have been through here already, Jamie,” said Cap.
“So what, you think they don’t need help now? Isn’t that what the fuck you two are for?” she said, chewing her thumbnail. “I already kicked Darrell outta here because he’s totally frigging useless. I already been through their room. You can start in the bathroom if you want.”
She stopped talking then, just went to the couch and started lifting up cushions, brushing coins to the carpet.
Vega nodded at Cap, nudging him to the other room. Cap was thankful. Maybe Vega could get through to her, do a woman-to-woman thing. Because she was so naturally sensitive. Cap shrugged it off and went into the next room, glad to have a break.
Kylie and Bailey’s room was sacked, the twin beds pulled apart, blankets and sheets in twisted piles on the floor, a white dresser with chipped edges, drawers open and vines of brightly colored little girls’ clothes spilling over the sides. Cap saw a pair of pink leggings. He remembered Nell wearing a lot of leggings when she was eight, nine years old. He wanted to smell them but felt like it would be disrespectful somehow, so he only touched them, lightly between his thumb and forefinger. They were unbelievably soft. The knees on them were worn, thready. They must be Bailey’s, he thought, still running, skinning knees.
“Fuck,” he heard Jamie say from the other room. “Oh fuck. Fuck, motherfucker, oh fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The fucks started low and throaty, then they rose to alarm quickly until they were screams.
Cap ran into the living room. Jamie was on the floor in front of the TV, DVDs scattered around her. Vega was closer and leaned down to her, grabbed her shoulders.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Jamie looked up at them, her face all black lines, electric, furious. She held up a DVD. Pirates of the Caribbean.
“This fucking movie.” She spat out the words like they were tobacco she’d been chewing. “Guy in it named Will Turner, she’s seen it a million times. That’s WT. It’s not Sonny Thomas. It’s not anyone.”
Cap’s forehead tingled and burned. He put a hand up to it, felt the breath kicked out of his chest. Then his instinct came back and he saw Jamie for what she was: an unstable element, a cut wire spraying sparks.