The Janes

by Louisa Luna

  Cap couldn’t see straight, a speck of glass hitting his left eyelid, but he fired anyway at Mackey, who ran to the deck. Cap went after him, pushed the blinds aside, the glass crunching under his shoes, saw Mackey jump the railing that connected room 15’s deck to room 16’s and run to the end of the platform.

  Cap aimed the Sig at Mackey but then heard his name.

  “Caplan!”

  It was Vega on the beach below. She was fine, sweaty, sandy, dots of blood lining her arms from the glass chips.

  “The girls are in Fourteen!” Cap called, picking up the bolt cutters from the deck.

  “You stay. I’ve got him,” said Vega.

  Cap watched Mackey jump off the deck onto the beach, and Vega took off after him, the Springfield in her hand.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as the shots stopped, she’d log-rolled fast toward the end of the deck. Caked in glass, she’d gone off the edge, no vertical railings here, and did her best to jackknife in midair so she landed on her haunches and hands and tumbled sideways in the sand. Her wrists were a little jammed, but she was still able to hold her gun.

  Now she watched Mackey run, but he was limping. She ran at full speed, pumping her arms and sprinting on the toes so she wouldn’t sink. Mackey seemed to slow down even more as he reached the red thatched fence that bordered the dog beach. Vega saw a thin, dark trail in the sand behind him, realized he was bleeding, that Cap must have hit him.

  He jumped over the fence and stumbled, and one of the dogs, the mutts Vega had seen when she’d first come onto the beach, ran at Mackey, barking wildly, the owner yelling, “Rosie!” Vega was close to Mackey now, about ten feet away, and she watched as he shot the dog, blew the animal’s hind leg apart.

  The owner’s scream ripped through the air as he crumpled around the injured dog. Vega walked with purpose, stretching the gun out in front of her. She knew she had to shoot Mackey because now he was shooting and probably wouldn’t stop. He’d come undone; the blocks he’d been stacking in his little tower for weeks and months had collapsed. He was injured; he was mad.

  Also she was pissed about the dog. She’d had one as a child and had a lot of feelings about it.

  She aimed for his right shoulder and fired. He didn’t make a sound but dropped the gun and fell on his hands and knees. Vega moved closer, aimed for his right forearm in case he reached for the gun.

  The dog owner wept and held the bleeding dog on his lap, the dog’s chest moving up and down rapidly. The owner started screaming again but Vega’s hearing was a little tweaked—it was a different name now.

  “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, no!” he yelled.

  It was the other dog, the sister of the injured one. She jumped in the air and onto Mackey’s leg, latching onto his thigh with her boxy jaws. Mackey screamed and tried to pull the dog off, pushing at her head, but she wouldn’t let go, jaws locked. She shook her giant head back and forth like Mackey’s leg was a twisted rope chew toy, tearing through his pants, blood spraying up from it in an arched stream.

  Did she just know where the femoral artery was, thought Vega. Was that just instinct?

  Vega lowered her gun slowly with the sun on the back of her neck, watched Mackey bleed to death and didn’t do a goddamn thing.

  24

  cap walked back into the room, through the blinds, around the bed, over the glass. He flipped the lock on the knob of the connecting door to room 14 and opened it. This room was even darker than Mackey’s; it took a moment for Cap’s eyes to adjust. Then he saw her—a girl, probably sixteen, lying on the bed on her stomach. She had a circular burn on her temple just like Isabel Benitez’s, just like his. She still wore her underwear and lingerie from the Salton house. The TV was on, a Spanish-language hospital show playing.

  She barely glanced at him, digging one hand into a bag of potato chips, while the other hung over the side of the bed awkwardly, as if it were weighted.

  “Hello?” Cap said to her.

  She didn’t answer but jerked her arm up, and Cap saw that it was indeed weighted—it was connected by a pair of handcuffs at the wrist to another girl, who scrambled out from under the bed and stared at him with a mix of fear and shock.

  “Policía,” Cap said softly, tapping his chest.

  “Nati!” called the girl over her shoulder, and then she sat on the bed next to the girl with the burn mark, still solely focused on the TV.

  The bathroom door opened, and two more girls emerged, both about twelve or thirteen. One of them looked even younger than Missy.

  “Who you?” she said in English. Her eyebrows were dark and almost connected above her nose.

  “You speak English?” said Cap.

  She nodded.

  “I learn school.”

  “My name’s Max,” he said to her. He looked around to the other girls. “Max,” he said again, pointing to himself. “What’s your name?” he said to the English-speaking girl.

  “Nati,” she said. “Where the man?”

  “He’s gone,” said Cap assuredly, though he did not know himself how he sounded so confident.

  “Where Dalena?” asked Nati.

  The girl with the burn made a screeching sound, a sort of cackle, her eyes still on the screen, and then she spoke rapid Spanish in Nati’s direction. Cap only picked up “Dalena” and “barman” and he thought he heard “Coyote Ben.”

  “Dalena Cortez?” he said.

  Nati nodded.

  “She’s safe,” Cap said, choking on the word a little, picturing the ISC facility. “All the others are safe.”

  “She say she saves us,” said Nati. “She say she come.”

  “It’s okay,” said Cap. He glanced around again at all of the girls. “You’re all okay now.”

  He leaned forward and said gently, “Give me your hands.”

  Nati appeared apprehensive but then focused on the bolt cutters and understood. She said something in Spanish to the girl next to her, and then they both carefully extended their arms toward Cap.

  He opened the jaws of the bolt cutters and set the blades on the chain of the cuffs that linked the girls together.

  “Don’t move, okay?” he said.

  Nati nodded, translated for her friend.

  Cap held tightly to the handle grips and brought them together forcefully, felt a soft resistance for less than a second before the link broke. The chain came apart like a toy, and the girls stared at their newly freed hands, the cuffs still on their wrists.

  * * *

  —

  Cap drove to the tunnel in the desert, Vega in the passenger seat, the girls squeezed into the back, wrapped in blankets from the Surf Motel. Nati sat on the lap of the other older girl, called María Elena. They stared out the side window, craned their heads to peer out the rear. No one spoke.

  There was a white cargo van parked on the side of the road, and a figure standing next to it. As Cap drove closer he could make out who it was. He let his breath out, hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

  “There’s McT,” he said, even though he knew Vega could see him too.

  Cap pulled up and parked behind the van. McTiernan held up his hand in a wave. He appeared relieved to see them as well.

  Vega turned around to speak to the girls. They seemed nervous, glancing at McTiernan and the van, alarmed that they might end up in it, Vega assumed. Only Chicago, sitting in the middle, squinted toward the window disinterestedly.

  “We need to talk to our friend,” said Vega in Spanish. “Please wait here, okay?”

  The three who were listening nodded. Vega and Cap got out of the car and walked toward McTiernan.

  “Are you okay?” he said to them.

  Cap looked down at his clothes, wrinkled and sweaty.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “Can I answer later?�
��

  “Where’s Otero and Boyce?” said Vega.

  “At the motel, cleaning up,” said McTiernan.

  “They planning to stay there?”

  McTiernan nodded.

  “What’s the timing here like?” Vega asked.

  McTiernan looked at his watch.

  “I’d say within the hour,” he said, nodding toward the tunnel’s opening. “What about Castán?”

  “Hour fifteen,” said Vega. Then she turned to Cap. “You should leave first.”

  “ ’Scuse me?” he said.

  “You should…leave first,” she said, quieter. “I don’t want the girls to see the others,” she said, nodding to the van.

  Cap followed her gaze to the van and then back at the girls in the car. He hadn’t thought it all through until that moment.

  “That’s fine, but I’m not leaving you here,” he said. “McT can take the girls and pick up Rodrigo.”

  “I’m not leaving either of you here,” said McTiernan, incredulous.

  “You can’t be here,” Vega said to McTiernan. “As a cop. You can’t see what’s about to happen.”

  “I’m such a good liar, though,” said McTiernan.

  “You, Otero, Boyce—none of you can have your eyes on this,” said Vega.

  McTiernan scratched behind his ear, looked like a little kid. Vega knew he knew it was true. She turned to Cap, who shrugged, held his arms out as if to present himself.

  “I’m not a cop,” he said.

  “You can’t be here, either,” she said gently.

  “Vega, these guys…” he began, then he stopped.

  “These guys know where Nell is,” she said.

  She took a step toward Cap. McTiernan retreated slowly toward the van, allowing them a spot of privacy. Vega got up close to Cap now but didn’t look in his eyes, put her face almost right next to his and looked straight over his shoulder.

  “You know it’s true,” she said, her breath hot on his ear.

  “Vega,” said Cap, putting his arms on her shoulders and positioning her directly in front of him so she had to look at his face. “One or more people are going to die right here.”

  “So you want to stay and add to those numbers?” she said. “Why do you have to argue with me all the time?”

  Cap was almost angry at how soothing her voice was. He was sure she was placing him under some sort of hypnosis.

  “Please listen to me,” she said softly, and then, even softer, “don’t make me break your femur.”

  Cap was too tired to laugh so he sighed.

  Vega continued: “Get Rodrigo and wait for me to text you.”

  He didn’t protest, but he wasn’t moving from where he stood.

  “Two hours,” he said.

  “Two hours,” she repeated.

  He turned away from her then and got into the car. He said something to the girls in the backseat, and then started the engine, switched on the lights. He made a U in the middle of the road, Nati watching Vega through the window as they sped off the way they’d come.

  Vega stared as the car got smaller. She turned back to McTiernan when she heard him unlock the back doors of the van. He latched the handles to hooks on either side of the doors so they stayed open, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and placed his hands on his hips.

  “I’ll go in, yeah?” he said.

  He didn’t wait for her to answer and climbed onto the bed of the van. Vega stepped forward and stood at the doors. There were the two white bags, all zipped up.

  “Which one’s which?” said Vega.

  McTiernan thought about it.

  “My left is Maricel Villareal. Right is Dulce Díaz.”

  “Maricel first,” said Vega.

  “On two,” said McTiernan, crouching, sliding his hands under his end of the bag. “One…”

  Vega laced her fingers under the bag. She could feel Maricel’s legs, light like paper towel tubes in her arms.

  “Two.”

  They lifted the bag. Vega backed up, and McTiernan stepped down from the van bed onto the road.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked her.

  “Just over here,” she answered, leading him to a patch of cactus-free dirt a dozen feet from the road.

  They lowered the bag, then went back for the other. They lined the two bags up, side by side. McTiernan gazed down at them.

  “I don’t want to leave you here, either,” he said to Vega.

  “You have to get past that,” she said, looking toward the sun.

  “And just trust you?”

  “You don’t have to,” said Vega, shrugging.

  “But you know what you’re doing, right?” McTiernan said, growing anxious.

  “Think so,” said Vega.

  “You think so?” said McTiernan.

  “Yeah, McT. My near-death count’s at three for the day. I think so.”

  McTiernan rubbed his nose, sweat flying into the air.

  Vega peered toward the mouth of the tunnel, then cast her line of vision toward the road and squinted.

  “They’ll all be here soon,” she said. “You should go.”

  McTiernan nodded, looked about to throw up. As he walked past Vega, he placed his hand on her shoulder for a second, then removed it quickly and kept going. He closed the back doors of the van, and went around to the driver’s side and got in, started the engine. He made a U and went in the same direction as Cap had gone.

  Vega didn’t watch the van shrink. She turned toward the sun, which was heading down but still hot on her face. She kept her eyes on the tunnel’s opening, just a black pocket in the sand, the bodies of the dead girls at her feet.

  Soon she heard the rattle of a small engine, and she started toward the tunnel. As soon as she saw the first man come up with a kerchief covering the bottom half of his face and a rifle slung over his shoulder, she raised her hands up as far as they would go.

  * * *

  —

  The sun was still not down when Castán’s SUV came into view. It was low enough, though, for the headlights to be on, the sky darkening to the color of blue glass. The SUV pulled over and parked at the side of the road.

  First the driver stepped out, then the man with the gun named Memo came from the passenger’s side. They glanced at Vega in passing, then at the white bags on the ground, about ten feet away from where she stood. Memo stood next to the hood, pointing his gun in Vega’s direction, almost casually. The driver, meanwhile, opened the rear door on the passenger side, and Javier Castán got out.

  He waved at Vega and approached her, Memo and the driver flanking him on either side.

  “Miss Vega,” he called cheerily.

  Then he made a small circle in the air with his index finger toward her, indicating the driver should move forward.

  Vega raised her arms preemptively, and the driver patted her down and removed her Springfield from the holster.

  “This is encouraging,” said Castán, gesturing to the white bags on the ground.

  Then he held his arms out.

  “I wonder where are the other four,” he said calmly.

  “They’ll be here soon,” said Vega.

  Castán checked his watch, the face gold and chunky.

  “I hope so,” he said, allowing a wince to cross his face. “Have you had any pain today, from the accident?”

  Vega shook her head.

  Castán shrugged.

  “I have been in a few car accidents. The first two or three, nothing. As I get older, I feel it the next day in my back, my neck,” he said, gesturing to the areas.

  Vega stared at him.

  “Getting old is no fun, Miss Vega,” he said. “But better than nothing, you’ll agree?”

  Vega kept he
r eyes on him, didn’t respond.

  Castán nodded toward the white bags, and the driver walked toward them. He held Vega’s Springfield at his side, an afterthought.

  Vega stared at Memo’s gun, still on her. She heard the driver unzipping the first bag, and without thinking about it, looked toward the sound, tilting her head the slightest bit.

  Then she noticed Castán’s expression change, from amused to another thing entirely. The artificial friendliness washed right out of his face, and suddenly it was like he was connected to an unseen power source underground, his arms straight at his sides, his eyes black and hard.

  “You should learn to control what you look at, Miss Vega,” he said, his voice hollow.

  Then one of the men from the tunnel burst through the opening of Maricel Villareal’s body bag and fired three quick shots from a semiautomatic rifle across the driver’s torso.

  Memo fired a messy shot in the direction of the man in the bag and missed. He ran at the bags as a second man ripped through the top of Dulce Díaz’s bag and fired a single shot into Memo’s face.

  Vega didn’t even have a second before Castán yanked her by the wrist and turned her around so she was right in front of him, both of them facing the horizon. Castán was strong and clearly had plenty of practice yanking women by the wrist. She could also tell he knew what he was doing, spiraling the wrist backward—he would just have to make one quick snap, and there would go a bone and some tendons. Instinctively her other arm went behind her back also, her fingers digging into Castán’s arm.

  Could she get away if she tried? Probably not, if she were being honest. But she could struggle, and that she chose not to do. Not just yet.

  “Your eyes, I mean,” he whispered to her. “You should control your eyes.”

  And with that he pressed the point of a thin blade against the corner of her eye, so close to the tear duct she could feel it begin to leak and wondered if the liquid was blood.