Two Girls Down(71)

Arlen White appeared, coming in through the back door, out of breath. He cast his thumb over his shoulder behind him, pointing outside.

“Did she talk about hurting herself?” said Cap.

Gail shook her head at him.

“No, sir, she just took a bottle of Smirnoff with her.”

Cap caught Vega’s eye, and she nodded at him. Got it.

Everyone stood around for a second, not moving.

“Well, go on, then, if you’re gonna go,” said Gail to Vega.

Vega went out the kitchen door, through the garage to the outside, along the back of the house. The house next to the Whites’ was only a few yards away, a chain fence dividing the property. There was hardly any light at all, no moon that she could see, only a dim sconced bulb above the back door.

An extension ladder was propped up against the house, next to one of the living room windows. Vega climbed it.

“Better be you, Alice,” Jamie said before Vega reached the top.

“It’s me.”

Vega stepped off the top rung and onto the roof, where it tilted at a small angle around the perimeter. Jamie sat in the middle, where it was flat, with her knees to her chest, holding the vodka to her side.



Vega approached her but didn’t get too close, stood next to her facing what she was facing, which was the street, a patch of woods, a satellite from one of the vans.

“We have a new lead,” said Vega. “A guy named John McKie—do you know that name?”

Jamie tried to shake her head, but it was like there was a delay between her head and her neck.

“What about Dena Macht?”

“Nah,” Jamie said. “I never heard of ’em. Who are they?”

Vega told her and couldn’t tell if Jamie was listening. She was drunk, and her head kept tipping forward and snapping back up as she almost fell asleep and caught herself.

“Also I met your ex-husband,” said Vega.

Jamie registered this, turned to look at Vega and laughed.

“Yeah? He didn’t know anything, right?”

“Right,” said Vega. “You should talk to your lawyer—the government will garnish his wages for child support, but he might go to jail before that.”

Jamie nodded mechanically.

“I don’t even care,” she said. “Money, no money, jail, no jail.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, like she was at the beach. “This guy I read about killed himself by cutting his wrists and then jumping off a building.”

“You can’t kill yourself, Jamie,” said Vega. “Your girls are going to need you.”

“Oh, come the fuck on,” said Jamie, turning on Vega, lips dark with lipstick or just chapped from being bit. “This is what I wanted-a ask you. What are the odds of them being alive, now, really? You do this for a living. I’ve read a bunch of shit online.”

She did not finish her thought, just peered straight ahead, into the woods.

“What I do,” said Vega, “has nothing to do with odds.”

Jamie rolled her eyes and took a swig from the bottle.

“That’s some Fast and Furious shit right there,” she said, pointing at Vega. Then she mimicked her: “What I do has nothing to do with odds, baby.”



Jamie started hiccupping, a wet indigestive sound. She pressed her fingers to her lips.

“You going to be sick?” said Vega.

Jamie didn’t respond, just put her head down and shuddered her shoulders.

“Jamie?”

Vega moved a little closer, tried to see her face, but the streetlight wasn’t bright enough.

Jamie still didn’t look up, and now the bottle dropped from her hands and hit the roof dully, rolled toward the edge. Vega ran to her just as Jamie went limp, and Vega caught her before she tipped fully over.

“Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.”

Vega said her name over and over, but Jamie couldn’t hear her; she was in another place now, foam bubbling out of her mouth and lying in Vega’s arms, still warm.

—

At the hospital, Cap paced in the waiting room while Jamie had her stomach pumped. Cap had seen the process a few times as a cop, and every time he thought about the accuracy of the term because it was like something you would do to a septic tank to flush it out—stick in a tube and apply suction until everything comes up and out.

Jamie’s parents had been taken into the Resus area with her; Cap and Vega were left in the waiting room, while Maggie filled out forms with the triage nurse. Vega stood typing on her phone with her thumb, leaning against the wall. She had a streak of Jamie’s vomit across her shirt. She hadn’t looked Cap in the eye since right before she’d gone to the roof. He had an urge to tell her it wasn’t her fault, none of it was, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do it that wasn’t patronizing.

His phone buzzed with a text. Nell.

“U OK? It’s late even for u.”

Cap typed, “I’m OK. Jamie swallowed a bunch of pills with half a bottle vodka. At ER.”

He watched the three dots flash at the bottom of the screen and pictured Nell’s face.

“Terrible!” she wrote back. “Will she be OK?”



“Hopefully,” texted Cap. “Usually 4-hour window good.”

He paused, then added, “Go to bed!”