Two Girls Down

by Louisa Luna

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Attempt the pep talk.”

  “I am not attempting pep talk,” he said. “I am sharing my experience.”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” said Vega.

  She wasn’t laughing or even smiling, but she seemed suddenly to have more energy, inspired in some odd way by his sappiness.

  As they pulled up to the inn, she checked her phone and said, “So Wilkes-Barre is what, fifty miles?”

  “Sounds about right,” said Cap. “What’s in Wilkes-Barre?”

  “Dena Macht’s parents,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’ll tell Traynor we’re heading there in the morning?”

  “I guess I will,” said Cap, taking a sip of a four-hour-old coffee from a wax paper cup. “Pickup at seven?”

  He looked at the time on the dash. 3:06. Vega shrugged.

  “Seven-thirty,” she said, and turned and went up the path to the inn, lit on either side by gas lamps for charm purposes.

  Cap laughed once and loudly before starting the car.

  —

  She may or may not have slept. But when it came down to it, did she need to? As long as she was lying down with closed eyes, pretending to be asleep, could a body really tell the difference?

  She thought about this while standing on her hands. There was congestion in her nose; she felt the block as she tried to breathe deeply. She gave up and breathed through her mouth. A no-no in yoga. So turn me in, she thought. Call the yoga police.

  She heard a bird, but it wasn’t a song, more like an effort at communication: persistent, repetitive, rhythmic. No birds answered him; it was just that one. And the more Vega heard his weird calls the more she swore he was actually speaking English, one word over and over: Here. Here. Here.

  She opened her eyes, and there were the girls again, in their white dresses with the black sashes. Vega knew this was not really Kylie and Bailey speaking to her. She knew her mind was feeding her the images, pulling them from horror movies—the Shining twins, the little girl with the braids who kills her classmates, the gang of blond kids with their glowing eyes.

  But they sure looked like Kylie and Bailey, even if they were fakes. They looked at each other, at Vega.

  “What?” Vega said to them, sweat trickling up her chin, onto her lips.

  That’s when Kylie got on one knee and came up close to her face. Vega could feel the warm air of her breath as she spoke:

  “You’re probably gonna die today.”

  13

  Dena Macht’s parents lived out in Wilkes-Barre. Cap drove on a county road, and out the window were woods and farmhouse conversions. How could anyone sleep listening to crickets and cats and a car down the street once a day? Out here you would watch it come and go from your window, anxious, then relieved.

  They found the house down a road that was paved but just barely. They parked and could not find a path of any kind, so they walked in the grass toward the house, which had two boxy stories with an A-frame roof. Cap expected to see some chickens or a pig running around in the front yard, but instead of animals there were about fifteen dishwashers, tented under a blue tarp.

  Cap rubbed his eyes reflexively, as if the gesture would make him more awake. But he wasn’t. He was on the ropes of consciousness, even after he’d drunk a cup of coffee while he shaved and finished a thermos in the car on the way to Vega’s. He still knew if he closed his eyes for more than a few seconds he would collapse. He felt like a senior citizen even though he knew that forty-one wasn’t old anymore, that lots of men became first-time fathers in their forties, or dated women half their age, went back to school. Allowed themselves to be in love. But not him, and not now.

  Vega was showing signs too. She had seemed aggressively youthful back in the old days earlier in the week, energy buzzing off her even while she sat silent in the passenger seat. Now she was moving slowly, head tilted down, weighted.

  A woman came through the screen door and stood on the porch, looking at them. Pockmarks lined her cheeks, her eyes clear and blue. She didn’t speak.

  Cap stood up straight and said, “Mrs. Macht?”

  “Yes. You Mr. Cappan?”

  “Caplan, yes. This is Alice Vega.”

  Mrs. Macht nodded at them, a little suspicious.

  “May we come in for a minute?” Cap said.

  She nodded again and went inside, holding the door open.

  They followed her. The living room seemed too small for all the furniture, tables and couches and chairs, lining the walls, a rug with woven concentric circles in the middle of the floor that made Cap dizzy.

  “Let me get my husband,” Mrs. Macht said.

  She stood in a doorway leading to other rooms and yelled.

  “Mitch, these folks are here!”

  Mrs. Macht did not sit and did not tell them to sit. She crossed her arms and pulled her thick sweater tight across her chest. Then Mitchell Macht came in. He was fat and had a mottled blond goatee on his chin.

  He shook hands with Cap, nodded at Vega, and seemed to be out of breath.

  “You’re looking for Dena?” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Cap.

  “She’s staying at my dad’s cabin down Woodgrove.”

  “Where’s that exactly?”

  “About ten, fifteen miles east of Frackville, back toward you in Denville, I’m afraid—you got to go a bit off the interstate.”

  “Is your father with her there?”

  “Nah, he’s dead,” said Macht, no emotion in any direction. “She’s been staying there while she looks for work.”

  Mrs. Macht emitted a sigh that sounded like a honk. Her husband glanced at her, and she left the room.

  “You looking for her ex, for John?” said Macht.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s trouble. I always knew it. Dena was doing okay before she met him. She was going to junior college and had a job, everything.”

  Cap nodded, pictured Nell.

  “You said ex—they’re not together romantically as far as you know?”

  “Yeah, she got rid of him,” said Macht proudly. “She knew he was bad news.”

  “Do you have a number where we could reach her? We’d like to ask her if she has heard from McKie at all in the past month.”

  “She just changed her cell phone. She couldn’t get reception up there with AT&T.”

  Cap thought for a quick second, remembered Charlie Bright’s mother making excuses for him.

  “Is there a landline?” he said.

  “Yeah…” Macht paused. Cap watched him struggle, eyes batting around, lips tightening over the teeth—all marks of a witness who was not a great liar, trying to decide whether or not to admit something.

  “It’s been outta order for a while,” he added quickly.

  “So what would be the best way to get in touch with her?”

  “You could, uh, leave her a message on the cell, and when she gets it she’ll call you back.”

  “We don’t really have too much time to wait for that, Mr. Macht,” said Cap. “You understand, we’re looking for the Brandt girls. Every minute we lose we get further away from finding them alive and safe. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

  “Yeah, ’course,” said Macht, pained. “I could drive you up there myself—I usually go see her every other Friday. I don’t want to take her by surprise.”

  Cap’s jaw throbbed where Ralz had hit him, made him feel foggy, like he had to unpack things more than usual.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I ask you what you mean by that? You don’t want to take her by surprise?”

  Macht took a few seconds to compose a response. Then Cap heard Vega’s voice.

  “You know what he means by that?” Vega said.

  Cap turned, saw that Vega was talking to Mrs. Macht, who had reappeared in the doorway, smoking a cigarette.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Mrs. Macht.

  “Ro,
we talked,” Macht said to her.

  “I know we talked about it, you damn old fool,” said Mrs. Macht, not at all affectionately.

  “My wife, she doesn’t have a lot of patience for Dena,” said Macht.

  “Just shut up, Mitch,” snapped Mrs. Macht. “Shut your mouth and quit telling lies.”

  Macht looked like he was about to protest but then didn’t, sank back into the couch like a sandbag.

  Mrs. Macht came into the room and addressed Cap and Vega, didn’t look at her husband.

  “That girl didn’t need John McKie or anyone else to turn her into a deadbeat,” she said, spite drawing down the corners of her mouth. “She did that all by herself. Started sniffing glue and paint thinner when she was twelve years old. First abortion at fifteen, second at seventeen.”

  Mrs. Macht tapped the side of her head forcefully. “Something missing up here. Always was.”

  “Ro,” Macht said sadly.

  “No, Mitch,” she said. “I tried to sit here and listen to you lie to these people to make yourself feel better. I ain’t doing it.”

  She shook her head, laughed to herself.

  “She faked my signature on a check; that’s when I called the cops. We work our whole lives and then we’re gonna lose our damn house ’cause she wants to smoke drugs? No way. No way, José.”

  She looked at her husband over her shoulder, dismissive.

  “He didn’t want me to do it either. If it was up to him, we’d be on welfare ’cause of her. ’Cause he’s a fool.”

  Macht said nothing, stared at the globe of his stomach.

  “Ma’am,” said Cap. “Do you think your daughter is still involved with John McKie or do you agree with Mr. Macht?”

  “I don’t agree with Mr. Macht about anything,” she said. “So, yeah—I’m sure they’re still together, and I’m sure he’s with her right now at that cabin. And what Mr. Macht didn’t wanna tell you is there was a landline, but she’s never paid a bill in her life so there’s no electricity and no running water up there. They just smoke drugs by candlelight; it’s a real romantic scene. Only way you’re gonna find them is if you drive there yourselves.”

  “We can do that,” said Cap.

  “I gotta give you directions,” said Mrs. Macht. “Address won’t come up on Internet maps.”

  She went to a small table where there was a phone and scratched out notes on a slip of paper.

  “If you talk to her, if she isn’t passed out or what have you,” she said, handing Cap the note, “can you give her a message for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Mrs. Macht blew out a cloud of smoke, aimed above Cap’s head to be polite, and she looked a little shaky just then. Maybe the screws and bolts that locked up her daily rage were loosening, Cap thought.

  Then she said, “Tell that dumb bitch she still owes me sixty-eight hundred dollars.”

  —

  They followed a series of splintered roads according to Mrs. Macht’s directions until they were officially lost. There was a house every quarter mile or so, each one more rustic than the last, smaller and smaller windows and doors, lawns shrinking and turning into woods, until they didn’t see any houses or cars for ten minutes. The landscape reminded Vega of a program she’d seen on TV once, something like “When the Humans Die”—vegetation growing wild, vines covering houses and cars, doing the quiet work of decomposition.

  She watched her phone, which still retained a flicker of reception, but the message kept coming back that the Internet could not find her location. The tics of the circle in the upper left corner spun. Searching, searching.

  Cap decided they better turn around, but then Vega saw something up ahead, a flash of white, headlights and tires jutting out from the trees. A truck.

  Cap rolled into the gutter of the road and turned off the car. Vega got out, smelled the salty smoke of a fire somewhere close. She heard a dissonant birdsong, three mismatched notes on a loop. She examined the pickup, the paint faded to beige, dirt coating the tires and fender. Her eyes followed the scrap of a driveway back to a cabin the size of a gas station bathroom, surrounded by trees, and on the porch, a man kneeling, working at something.

  Cap went first, stepping quietly around the truck.

  “Excuse me,” he called, his voice amplified.

  Vega nodded, approving his volume. Best not to surprise anyone out here.

  Closer to the house now, she saw the man crouching, cleaning a stool with a spray bottle and a rag. There was also a folding chair and an old tube television.

  The man glanced up as they came to the clearing, and said, “Folks lost?”

  He was in his seventies, with hair that looked recently shaved, just sprouting white spikes in a semicircle on his head and also his face.

  Cap came forward and said yes, introduced himself and Vega. The man didn’t offer his name.

  “We’re looking for a woman named Dena Macht. Do you know that name?” said Cap.

  “Macht, sure,” said the man. “You’re all turned around, realize?”

  He stood now, wiping his hands with the rag.

  “Yeah, we thought as much,” said Cap.

  The man gave them some directions. Turn around, a left where they had taken a right, follow the unmarked road with the broken roadblock sign to the Macht cabin.

  “I’ve seen the girl and her boyfriend in town,” said the man with the air of a conspirator. “They got problems.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “That girl, Dena?” said the man. “I used to see her with her granddad when he built the place. She used to be cute; now she’s got holes in her face from the drugs.”

  He seemed genuinely saddened by it.

  “Have you seen them lately? In the last few days?”

  “Nah, I ain’t seen them,” he said. “Couple weeks probably. You friends of theirs?”

  “We know Dena’s parents,” said Cap.

  The man nodded. That was enough for him.

  “Well, she owes money to everyone in town. Surprised they haven’t torched the place yet,” he said. Then, as an afterthought: “I don’t trust people from New York, personally. Think they got an attitude.”

  At first Vega thought somehow he’d picked up Cap’s trace Brooklyn accent, even though Vega heard it only in a few of his words, when he said “coll” for “call.” Cap met her eyes, registering the anomaly.

  “Who’s from New York, now?” said Cap.

  The man dropped the rag on the folding chair and pulled a tissue from his pocket, rubbed it on the back of his neck.

  “Her boyfriend, right? The tall guy. He’s got a damn Giants sticker on his car,” he said, impatient suddenly, like Cap and Vega were dense not to get it before.

  Vega’s head burned in the middle, the realization blistering outward, fire eating up the fuses. She turned around and left first, heard Cap thank the man and not wait for him to say anything back before Cap followed her, both of them walking, then running through the white trees which were peeling, flaps of bark hanging off with the red wood underneath. Vega knew it was probably natural for whatever kind of tree it was, but it still looked like a disease, a hemorrhage, something to be cured or killed.

  —

  They found the roadblock, faded orange stripes on two planks with a handwritten detour sign. Vega got out and moved the sign to the side of the road while Cap tried dialing Traynor, then Junior, then Em, but there was no answer, no click and no ring—just the low hum of not connecting.

  Cap leaned his head out the window and said, “I have no bars. No dots. Do you have service?”

  Vega got back in and ran her thumb over the face of her phone.

  “No,” she said.

  Cap pulled ahead slowly, hearing the wheels crush gravel, the car rocking unevenly over the dips. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the phone, hitting Traynor again. Traynor…calling work. Nothing.

  “Caplan, brake,” said Vega.

  Cap glanced up a lit
tle too late, and the car slid into a ditch. He yanked the wheel right and pulled out, the fender cracking the edge.

  “Shit.”

  “Caplan,” said Vega. “Maybe we should walk awhile.”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling over.

  He turned off the engine, and they both stepped out. The morning was turning warm, the air clear, clouds moving fast. Spring for real, thought Cap. Vega straightened her jacket at the bottom and shrugged one shoulder, adjusting the holster and the pistol underneath.

  Cap typed out a text to Traynor, Junior, and Em as he walked to the trunk: “We are 15 miles east of Frackville. Bumper sticker on McKie’s car matching descript of ridgewood mall car.” He hit Send and watched the bar at the top hang in the middle.

  He opened the trunk and reached for the MicroVault, tapped in his code (1107—Nell’s birthday), and pressed his right index finger over the fingerprint scanner. The lock clicked and he opened the case. There was his Sig, right where he had left it the day he lost his job. When he was a cop he’d carried it every day and kept it clean, but never had been one to fetishize it like some other cops, never gave it a woman’s name or obsessively polished the steel, never had a collection at home or subscribed to publications for gun enthusiasts. It had just been a tool of the job, a stethoscope for a doctor. And when he lost his job he had put it in the vault in his bedroom closet and forgot about it. Until this morning.

  He loaded the clip and peered down the barrel.

  “When’s the last time you had that in your hand?” said Vega.

  “Day I lost my job.”

  “That’s all kind of pathetic,” she said.

  Cap smiled and slid the gun down the small of his back, undid and fastened his belt to the next hole to tighten it up.

  They walked the road, which grew narrower still, the width of a compact car and not an inch more. Cap looked at his phone again, cupping his hand over the top to shade the screen from the glare. The texts read as delivered, but his phone was so old he never knew. He wrote one more: “Copy back.” Hit Send. Then redialed Junior. Not even a ring, the screen black.

  “Can you get anything?” he asked Vega.

  She shook her head.