Two Girls Down(80)

“Fair enough,” said Cap. “I’m going to stay right here, okay? I’m not coming any closer. And I have no plan to use this gun—I only have it for Kylie and Bailey’s protection right now.”

He watched the words coil in Dena’s head. She allowed herself to take a breath and readjusted her arm around Bailey, which was a good sign. It meant that Dena was thinking and not yet locked into anything she saw as inevitable. Bailey stared at Cap with giant exhausted eyes; he couldn’t tell how much she was registering.

“My name’s Max Caplan. Your folks told me where I could find you.”

“I know,” Dena said. “My dad called.”

The old softie, Cap thought with a mix of bitterness and sympathy. Probably paid the phone bill for his little girl and didn’t tell the missus. And totally screwed the ambush factor, but Cap didn’t let the anger in because this was the opening. This was the door.

“I talked to your dad for a long time,” he said. “He’s a real good guy.”

Dena bit her lip.

“He loves you a lot, Dena. I think he’ll do just about anything for you,” said Cap. “I know how he feels—I have a daughter too. She’s sixteen. And she’s everything to me. She’s the reason that I don’t give the hell up and drink beer all day. She’s why I’m alive.”

Cap listened to his words as they trailed out of his mouth, echoing back and forth. He took the smallest step forward.

“I think your dad feels the same way about you.”

Dena scrunched up her nose, trying not to cry. This was good. If he could get her crying, he had this, and no one had to get shot. Cap knew this was the time. Make the jump.

“You have to know, Kylie and Bailey’s mother feels the same way about them. You know that, right?”



He waited. Nobody moved.

Slowly, Dena nodded.

—

Vega woke up in the hallway again. She was on her side now, the blood a steady stream across her forehead. The front of her skull throbbed, and every muscle ached, like she’d just run ten miles without stretching. She opened her eyes just a little and did not see McKie but could hear him in the small bedroom, muttering and moving things around.

She lifted her head, and the pain increased, pounding now, but she pushed, and looked around, didn’t see her Springfield.

Goddammit, Vega, said Perry in her head. You let that redneck grab your dick? Make that shit right quick or you’re dead. Then he would whistle the sound of Pac-Man getting sacked by a ghost, punctuated at the end by a cheerful “Wup Wup.”

She heard thumps from the small bedroom, McKie opening and slamming drawers shut. Vega flipped onto her stomach, the gash above her eyebrow beating like a heart, and she watched blood drip from her head to the floor. She pushed up with her arms and her feet at the same time, her body a plank, and she started to move like that, crawling without her knees touching the ground, close to the wall, until she could just see into the bedroom.

McKie was leaning over the bed, shoving clothes into a cardboard box. He was breathing fast and heavy. Her Springfield stuck out of the back of his jeans. The strip of wood he’d used on Vega was on the floor, a foot from the doorway, two black screws sticking out of the end, dipped in Vega’s blood.

Vega walked her legs to her hands and squatted, the springs of her hamstrings ready. McKie stopped packing and ran his hands through his hair. Vega pinched two fingers into her pocket and pulled out Evan Marsh’s Zippo. You got spare change, Perry would say. Throw it. Buys you three or four seconds, and that’s all you need.

Time was funny that way when the shit got thick—slow then fast.

Vega threw the lighter so it sailed past McKie’s head before hitting the wall and landing on the bed.

He turned his head to the side as he twisted around and reached for the Springfield in his pants, but Vega was already up on her feet. She grabbed the board with one hand, digging her fingernails into it, the pain in her head revving like a chain saw, and she swung at McKie’s hand just as he touched the gun, putting everything from her upper body into it. The Springfield flew to the floor, where it skidded and spun to the corner, and Vega shut the door with the back of her foot, careful not to slam it. McKie screamed, his mouth the end of a black tunnel, and Vega thought, Ugly, ugly, ugly, as she hit him again across the side of the head. Now he fell and quieted down, stunned, and she brought the board down on his back where it broke, snapped in two, the jagged half twirling up in the air.



“What was the question?” Vega said, sounding genuine.

She stomped his ribs with her heel and kept kicking.

“What was the question?” Vega said, louder. “What was the question?”

McKie screamed again and tried to turn onto his back and cover his abdomen with his bloody hand.

“Who am I, right? Right? Right?”

She held her foot right over his face, let it hover. And then she said what Perry had taught her—someone asks who you are, you tell them the only thing they need to know:

“I’m the motherfucker who gets. Shit. Done.”

Then she kicked him once more in the face, and he was out.

—

The birds got louder, overlapping chirps and squawks that sounded like arguing, but Cap knew that was just him tracing human emotion over it. He thought he heard a thump or two from inside the cabin but couldn’t be sure; it might have been the pounding in his ears.