by Louisa Luna
Cap laughed. He was sweating everywhere now, a sheet down his back. His eyes jumped from the desks to the corners of the room and he realized something: There was no paperwork anywhere, no file cabinets, no computers.
“Do you have some kind of admissions process?” he asked.
McConnell licked the corners of his mouth, and Cap realized he was sweating a lot too, the circles under his arms grown to the diameters of dinner plates. He did not answer Cap’s question.
“You don’t know these kids’ names, do you?” Cap said, nausea pressing down on his chest.
“Not your concern,” said McConnell, visibly flustered, not meeting his eye.
“Do you have any files? Anywhere?” Cap said, his volume rising steadily.
“Yes, of course we have files. We have a system in place when kids come in and out.”
“Yeah? Where is it, McConnell? This trailer isn’t that big,” Cap said, his eyes wildly searching the space. He pointed to the bare surfaces of the desks and continued: “You have no files, no computer.” The unease shifted to anger and disbelief. “What the hell is this place? Who are all of those kids and where are their parents?”
McConnell pushed past his momentary sheepishness and seemed to steel himself, hands pressed on the table in front of him like he was guarding a door.
“You’re not here to do oversight, Mr. Caplan. I’m under no obligation to assist you in any way except to provide limited access to the six detainees you wish to interview.”
“Detainees,” Cap said, the word stumbling on his tongue. “You know, I have a suggestion to propose if you need some help keeping track of your detainees.”
McConnell was silent and crossed his arms in a display of willfulness.
“Since you’re having such a hard time recording their names, maybe you could give each of them a number,” Cap said, preposterously upbeat. “And you know, kids can never remember stuff like that so maybe you could just, you know, write it down on their shirts.” Cap scratched his head, continuing his little bit of theater. “But, now that I think about it, you’re going to have to wash the shirts, so maybe you could have someone tattoo the numbers on their arms, like right here, for example,” Cap said, presenting his left forearm.
McConnell was stoic.
Cap put both hands on the table and leaned forward.
“Find the girl named Missy who got here yesterday and she’ll know the other five,” he said, his voice shaky with rage.
He couldn’t be sure that Missy, the terrified girl whom Davis had matched him with at the Salton house, was one of the six at the facility, but it was worth a shot.
McConnell’s scowl had grown larger than the confines of his narrow face, his fair eyebrows arched, mouth pinched and puckered. He came around the conference table and went past Cap, leaving less than an inch between them. McConnell opened the door and yelled, “Sam!”
Cap imagined Nell’s face throughout her history: baby, toddler, age ten, age twelve. Sometimes those images were the only hope of him remaining calm.
* * *
—
Vega watched the guard with the AR-15 for a while. It became clear to her that he was not used to carrying one, the way he had it slung over his shoulder like a messenger bag. She also kept an eye on the observation tower and did not see anyone standing at the top of it. It was not a particularly tall tower either, only about fifty feet high, made of wood with a ladder built in down the side. It reminded Vega of the lookout towers people had built in her county after a rash of wildfires the year before.
The trailer door opened, and a tall blond man, whom Vega suspected was McConnell, leaned out and yelled something to the guard with the AR-15. The guard jogged toward the fence and entered the main camp.
She took one last look at the fence held closed by the padlock and then got out of the car, headed toward the trailer.
* * *
—
Missy was first through the door. When she saw Cap, she smiled tentatively and went right to him. She didn’t hug him but stood directly in front of him as if the proximity was intimate enough.
“Policía,” she said quietly.
“Missy,” said Cap.
Her smile grew now, more secure.
“Are you okay?” said Cap in English.
Missy looked around at McConnell standing by the table and Sam leaning against the door. Then she nodded.
Cap didn’t recognize the five other girls, but he knew it was only because he had not interacted with them the way he had with Missy. Three of them appeared to be closer to Missy’s age, and the other two were a little bit older, closer to Nell’s. They all wore baggy gray ISC shirts and jeans, which also looked too big, rolled up at the ankles on the younger girls.
McConnell and Sam stood in their respective places watching the girls with what Cap thought was an inappropriate degree of suspicion.
“You guys can go,” said Vega, who leaned against the wall next to the open door.
McConnell shrugged his shoulders like a frustrated teen and came around the table.
“You got sixty minutes,” he said to Vega.
“You’re the boss,” said Vega.
McConnell and Sam left, slamming the door behind them, the trailer shaking with the force of it.
Cap pulled out a chair at the conference table for Missy and gestured for her to sit. The other five girls were already sitting, taking in their surroundings. Vega pulled a wheeled chair over from one of the desks and rolled it to Cap, then grabbed one for herself and sat at the corner of the table.
“Are you all okay?” she said in Spanish.
Missy nodded first. Four others did, one by one. The girl at the end, older with a burn on her temple just like Cap’s, did not respond. Vega recognized the girl next to her as the one covered in blood from Mitch’s gunshot wound, the girl with the unusually sharp and accurate answers with regard to the head count and number of weapons. She nudged the girl on the end with the burn mark and whispered something to her. Finally the girl with the burn mark nodded.
“Is anyone hurt?”
Shakes of the head all around the table.
“Are they giving you food and water here?”
Nods.
Vega looked at Cap. What first?
“Their names,” said Cap. “Let’s get them down.”
Vega pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped opened a notes app.
“Please tell us your names. Your real names.”
One by one they did.
Missy started: “Melisenda Cantiñero.”
“Yolanda Torres.”
“Rosa María Silva.”
“Francisca Santana.”
“Dalena Cortez,” said the girl who had been Fat Mitch’s hostage.
She nudged the girl on the end, who shook her head again.
Dalena said, “She’s Isabel Benitez.”
Vega wrote them all down on her phone.
“Do you know the names of the other four girls?” Vega asked.
“Ara, Nati,” said Missy, who paused.
“María Elena,” added Francisca. Her hair was cut a little shorter than the others’, and her arms were thin, no muscle and no fat, more like a preteen boy than a girl.
“Catalina,” said Dalena, and then, “Chicago.”
Vega finished typing the names into her notes and looked back up at Cap. Where to, next.
“I guess we start with the biggest first,” said Cap.
Vega nodded.
“Do any of you know Michael Mackey?” she asked.
The girls had blank expressions. Some of them looked at one another, but no one answered.
“Do we have a picture?” said Cap.
“Yeah,” said Vega, scrolling on her phone. She brought up a photo that Otero had sent and p
assed the phone to Missy, who nodded.
“He was waiting for the other girls yesterday, before we came here,” she said.
“Did you ever see him before that?” asked Vega.
“He was at the house sometimes,” said the girl named Rosa María in a voice so high and quiet Vega thought she had to be even younger than she looked. “He talked to Coyote Ben.”
Vega translated for Cap, who said, “You want to confirm what Collins told us?” he said.
“Did any of you see where the other four girls were dropped off yesterday, to this man, Michael Mackey?” Vega said, holding up the phone so they could still see the photo.
“We saw them get off the bus,” said Francisca. “The driver said some of us were going with the man,” she said, pointing at the phone.
“The man had a van, and the girls got in,” Missy added. “Then the bus brought us here.”
“Do any of you remember what color the man’s van was?” Vega asked.
She hoped only to get the color. She knew most witnesses who had not been through repeated and extensive trauma and had a passing familiarity with English wouldn’t remember any details; it was unrealistic to expect that any of them could identify the make or model.
“Blue?” said Missy hopefully.
“I think it was black,” said Francisca.
“No, it was dark blue,” added Yolanda.
“That’s fine,” Vega said kindly. “Black or blue.”
She said it in English for Cap’s benefit.
Dalena, the older girl who had spoken for Isabel Benitez, raised her hand like she was in a classroom.
“Yes, Dalena, right?” said Vega.
Dalena nodded.
“Do you want the license plate number?” she asked politely, saying “license plate” in English.
Cap almost fell off his chair. He and Vega looked at each other.
“Yes, I do,” said Vega earnestly. “You remember the license plate number?”
Dalena nodded.
“6GLV478,” she recited.
Vega typed it on the phone and then flipped it so Dalena could see the screen.
“Is that right?”
Dalena nodded again. Vega handed her phone to Cap, who began a text to McTiernan.
“Thank you,” said Vega to Dalena. Then she looked around the table at the group. “Thank all of you.”
“Excuse me,” said Rosa María, painfully polite. “How long will we stay here?”
“Do you know where my mother is?” said Missy right away.
Then they all began speaking at once, suddenly overflowing with questions and details, addressing both Vega and Cap. All of them except Isabel, who stared at a point on the table.
“I’m sorry,” Vega said over them. “We have to leave now because we need to find the other four girls and make sure they’re okay. But we will come back, and we will have answers to your questions.”
“Please don’t leave,” Missy implored Cap.
She wasn’t crying but there was fear in her face. It reminded him of how she’d looked back in the cell of a room in the Salton basement. He longed to hug her or at least place his hand on top of hers to console her but didn’t dare. She was not his to touch.
“You’ll be safe here,” he said.
Vega translated, and Missy nodded bravely.
Then a stark sound burst from Dalena’s mouth.
“Sorry,” she said, her hand on her throat. “I have a cough.”
Cap continued to console Missy and the other girls. Even though he spoke English, they all listened to him intently.
Vega smiled at Dalena, who weakly smiled back. She looked away quickly, though, and Vega couldn’t be sure because she’d heard it for only a second, but she could swear it hadn’t been a cough at all. It was a laugh.
23
cap drove a clean ninety on the interstate toward their hotel. He gripped the wheel and ground his teeth together, fury still rushing over him like the rash of a fever.
Vega had McTiernan on speaker, as they updated each other.
McTiernan spoke in a hushed voice: “Montalvo’s guys are in the tunnel. They’re on motorbikes, like scooters, you know. Otero thinks it will take them a couple of hours at most. Usually takes people sixteen hours on foot.”
“Good,” said Vega. “Let us know when you get a hit on the plates.”
“Will do. What was the story at the ISC facility?”
Vega glanced at Cap, who stared straight ahead, still mute with anger.
“We have to hit pause on that,” she said, still watching Cap. “We’ll deal with it after we find Mackey. The girls don’t appear to be in immediate danger there.”
She and McTiernan said their goodbyes and hung up. Cap didn’t speak, didn’t look like he would start speaking soon.
“Caplan,” said Vega. “They’re not in immediate danger there, yes?”
Cap’s eyes searched the horizon, stinging from the bleachy dryness of the air. He made himself blink a couple of times.
“Yes,” he said.
They continued the ride in silence. Soon there were more on- and off-ramps, cars appearing around them on the freeway, gas stations, strip malls. Cap pulled off at the exit for the hotel and drove to the lot. He parked the car.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
He didn’t appear to be seething anymore, Vega thought, but fatigue had replaced his anger, his face drawn.
“I’ll be right back,” Vega said.
She got out of the car and ran up the stairs. Cap watched her go into the room and shut the door. He leaned his head down and rested it on the steering wheel, closed his eyes. He thought maybe he could fall asleep like that, his shoulders hunching forward. He imagined Nell again, then Missy’s frightened face.
Vega’s phone on her seat buzzed, and Cap twitched and sat up. He grabbed the phone and read the first line of a long text from McTiernan: “Surf Motel, 68 Beachfront.”
Vega came down the stairs with the bolt cutters over her shoulder and a duffel bag in her hand. She got back into the car, and Cap handed her the phone.
“We got a hit on the van plates,” he said.
Vega laid the bolt cutters across her lap and placed the duffel bag at her feet.
She read the text and said, “It’s a Hertz minivan, rented by Michael Mackey yesterday morning from a lot near the airport. And now the plates have come up registered at the Surf Motel. Near the beach.”
Vega sent a text to McTiernan and Otero, and then her phone buzzed with a call. Vega tapped the speaker and turned up the volume.
“Boyce and I are meeting shortly,” Otero said. “We think your earlier proposal about using the tunnels made sense. We need to meet at the station and then we can all go check out this motel?”
Vega looked at Cap, who had his hand on the wheel, staring at the dashboard. He rubbed his eyes.
“I don’t think we should wait that long, Commander,” said Vega. “We know where Mackey is; Cap and I can bring him in.”
“Wait a second,” said Otero, stern. “Let’s think this through. Mackey is a trained agent, and we don’t need this spinning into a hostage situation.”
“It’s already a hostage situation,” said Vega. “He’s holed up at a motel with the girls, and he’s not thinking the clearest right now.”
She shook her head as if Otero could see her.
“If we have a lock on a location, we need to take advantage of it. I would rate Mackey pretty high on the possibility of flight risk.”
“Ms. Vega,” said Otero, Cap getting the feeling he was straining to control his volume. “I realize no order I give you holds since you’re not a police officer, but we are working together on this, and we need each other. I strongly advise waiting for us to get there so we can maximize the chances of a p
ositive outcome.”
Vega shut her eyes and winced sharply, as if she’d just grabbed a hot pan handle without a towel.
“Fair enough,” Cap cut in, sounding beaten. “In two, three hours we’ll meet you at the station and work out a strategy, unless you need us sooner.”
“Not necessary,” said Otero, the relief plainly audible in his voice. “At the station, two or three hours. Ms. Vega, please feel free to call Mr. Castán.”
They said a few more things and then hung up. Cap turned the key in the ignition, and Vega reached over and turned it off again. Cap leaned back out of her way.
“What the hell?” said Vega, her voice cracking, the betrayal fresh on her face.
“Vega,” said Cap wearily.
He gently brushed her hand away from the key and started the car again.
“Do you really think I’m going to let those girls wait any longer?”
Vega reared back in her seat, surprised. Cap turned to her.
“This is that half hour,” he said.
Vega remembered saying it to him in the woods, which felt like ten years ago now. She remembered the wet leaves on her feet, the bright blurry sun through the naked branches of the white birch trees, the unmistakable taste of blood in the back of her throat being pushed up from her rapidly pounding heart. She remembered Cap’s lips on hers, their kinetic warmth, his skin coated with cool sweat.
She had done it to disarm him, of course, but also because she had damn well wanted to. And even though they didn’t know it when she kissed him, they could have died that day in the woods.
Maybe they did, she thought now. Maybe they did get shot by meth heads that day, and everything since then was the last gasp of neurological activity before death. Maybe their bodies lay side by side in the woods, still under that cold, clear sky.
“Yeah, it is,” she said.
Cap looked at her, something daring and young behind his eyes, and she knew they were not still in the woods. They were right here.
* * *
—
They made good time driving to the Surf Motel, just beating the afternoon rush hour. The rooms were laid out in a long strip on the beach, a line of parking spaces facing them on the street side. Cap cruised the lot, looking for Mackey’s van. It was not difficult; the lot was mostly empty, and they saw it at the far end of the strip, no cars on either side. Cap made a U and parked close by the entrance, next to a bungalow with a CHECK-IN sign on the door.