Two Girls Down(85)

“She’s here,” he said to Cap.

Cap smiled at Bailey, examined the slender curvature of her cheeks and chin. She really did look like the Shrinky Dinks version of Jamie, not just younger, but everything in miniature, down to the expressive almond eyes.

The child was calm and seemed to trust him. He didn’t flatter himself that he had a way with kids; he knew to her right now he was merely the agent of change, taking her from somewhere terrifying to another place, and considering the instability of Dena’s and McKie’s state of mind, another place was better no matter where it was. Because there were a ton of worse things you could do to an eight-year-old girl besides kill her.



But she had held on to him after Vega passed out, listened to him when he asked her to wait in the car while he went inside the house of the old man with the truck to use the phone, stood next to him and pressed her head into his side and under his arm when the sheriff and the ambulance showed up.

“Your mom’s here,” said Cap to her.

“Is she sick?” asked Bailey.

Cap breathed out an airy laugh and tried not to burst into tears like a maniac. Having had what would probably prove to be the singular most traumatic experience of her life, here was Bailey Brandt worried about her mother.

Before he could say yes, there was the ding of the elevator and then a rush of noise in the hallway, chatter and footsteps and Jamie Brandt’s burnt voice above them all, yelling, “Bailey!”

Bailey jumped in her chair and stood. She looked once more at Cap, and he smiled at her and nodded. She appeared unsure of everything, but not afraid. She peered toward the doorway.

Then Jamie was there, nearly hyperventilating, her jean jacket and purse falling off her, like she had climbed a rope ladder to get there. She was thin and pale and weak but still she ran and stumbled to Bailey, hitting the floor on all fours and crawling the last step to her. Bailey said, “Mama,” and slung her arms around Jamie’s neck, and Jamie grabbed her and moaned, her mouth open, cupping Bailey’s head and sweeping her hands over Bailey’s hair.

Then everyone was in the administrator’s small office: Traynor, Junior, Gail and Arlen, Maggie, two doctors and two nurses. Gail went to Jamie and Bailey and started hugging them too and thanking God, and Cap started to back out and make his way to the door.

Then Arlen was in front of him, pumping his hand, saying thank you and asking how can we thank you and remarking on what a blessed day this was. And Cap thought the day was blessed until it turned on you, and if they couldn’t find Kylie it would turn quick, sweet cream into bad milk.

A blessed day. Well, whatever you say.



Then a dark blot clouded the corner of his eye, and he turned and saw that it was Vega, standing against the wall at the end of the hallway. Dressed in her black uniform, the pants and sleeves coated with dust and dirt from the Macht cabin. Her face was scabbed and scraped on one side, a bandage over her eye where McKie had hit her with something hard and sharp.

Gail White called for her husband, her voice strongly reminiscent of a bow saw on plywood, and Arlen immediately stopped thanking Cap and God and hustled into the office.

Cap turned back to Vega and took some steps, and then she took some steps until they were close, and he could really see the scratches on her cheek like an animal skin pattern and the gloss of the bacitracin, the gray-blue bruise rising around the puncture wound, swelling her eyebrow.

“I didn’t think they’d let you out so soon,” said Cap. “They said you were dehydrated.”

“I’m okay,” she said, pressing her lips together. “They got me on some kinda painkiller.”

She squinted one eye at him and looked a little tipsy.

“You’re not supposed to be up, are you?” he said.

She shrugged, nodded to the office.

“They all in there?”

Cap nodded.

“Bailey tell you anything?” Vega said.

“Not really. We were holding questioning until Jamie could get here.”

“Where’s Dena?”

“In ICU. Which in this hospital is a room with a sign on the door that says ICU. She’s conscious but not at all lucid.”

“What about McKie?”

“He’s in a bed. Local sheriff’s watching him.”

“Awake though?”

“Yeah. Concussed,” Cap said, then smiled at her. “What’d you do to him anyway?”

“Hit him with a plank-a-wood,” she said, words running together. Then she pointed to the bandage. “Same one he got me with.”

Cap looked at the bandage, imagined a plank of wood hitting him in the forehead, a jagged edge or a nail punching a hole in his skull. He took in the parts of Vega’s face, including the puffy eyebrow and scrapes, and did not think he would look as good in such a situation. The kiss in the woods came back to him fast, his embarrassment and desire taking the form of a stomach cramp. He pulled at his belt.



“You okay?” Vega said. “What’s wrong with your pants?”

“Stomach thing,” he said.

She ignored him, because she was either high or disinterested, and he was grateful. Then he wondered if she remembered it at all, the kiss, if it had been wiped away by the trauma or if she’d slipped it into the inside pocket where she kept all things vulnerable and emotive.