Two Girls Down

by Louisa Luna

  Vega didn’t answer. Kept the gun steady on the left eye.

  “I told him we’d figure something out, but, honestly, I didn’t know what I was going to do. And then, this is where fate came in,” she said, excited to share her story, like they were two girls chatting over lattes. “The very next day we were on our way back from the pool, and there was Ashley in the parking lot. I guess she’d gone to the vending machines and gotten turned around. She knew us from ballet class, and I was like a celebrity to those girls, the piano player, Mrs. L, they called me. And she…”

  She paused, touched her finger to her lips, eyes distant.

  “She asked to come over. She asked,” said Mrs. Linsom in disbelief. “So she came with us. At home she and Cole played for a while, and then they both fell asleep. By then Ashley’s parents were calling everyone they knew. They hadn’t called the police yet. No one had seen her get into my car. And I thought—can it be this easy?”

  She gave Vega a shy smile.

  “Yes. It can be.”

  She seemed to be elsewhere while she recited the rest, channeling the events like a medium in a trance.

  “We kept her for two days. At first we thought we’d give her back. We knew that would be the end for us, but then I thought, What if we can have a normal life after all? What if Press can live without having to go through the burden that has been placed on him—what if this got it out of his system, like an antibiotic? My husband and my daughter could be fine…forever. And all I had to do was kill a little girl.”

  Vega started breathing faster. Stared into Mrs. Linsom’s clear eyes.

  “Of course, as you know, it wasn’t forever. Two years later he came to me again. Cole had stopped taking ballet, so I volunteered at a different studio, where I met Sydney. I planned a bit more, rented a car, put my hair up under a cap. Some people are not as careful with their children as they should be. An eight-year-old, walking home by herself.”

  She shook her head and sighed.

  “And now, Kylie.”

  Vega straightened her arm, fought the twitches in the tendons.

  “You can think whatever you want of me,” said Mrs. Linsom. “But I opened those accounts and paid those people anonymously because I did feel bad. I do feel bad. I’m a mother too. And none of them seemed to have a problem with that, the money. Even if they didn’t exactly realize what it was for.”

  Vega started to shake. She knew something would have to happen soon—she would have to either drop the gun or shoot.

  “You don’t have kids, Miss Vega, so I don’t expect you to understand this,” said Mrs. Linsom. “But if someone tells you: Either your child gets hurt or my child gets hurt. Your child is raped or my child is raped. Your child dies or my child dies. You will always pick the other child to die. Always. If you ever become a mother, you’ll find that out.”

  Vega’s mouth was dry as bread but she spoke anyway: “Lady, you’re a fucking psycho.”

  She came forward and grabbed Mrs. Linsom by the hair with one hand, pressed the nose of the gun into her eye socket. Mrs. Linsom gave a grunt of surprise, raised her hands instinctually to protect the rest of her face, as if that might help her.

  Vega took deep breaths and imagined the pull and release. The recoil would push her back, maybe knock her to the floor since her arm was so shaky. Mrs. Linsom had a small skull—the round would blast the back of it open easily and leave the muddy cavity that would have been her eye.

  She tried to imagine how she would feel. She wasn’t thinking about Cap and Nell, Jamie Brandt, her mother, the world. She’d never had to kill anyone before. All her years working with Perry and freelancing she’d done a lot of injuring, hit arms and knees like she did with Dena Macht, broken fingers and smashed knuckles, bitten ears and slammed the grip of her gun into cheeks and jaws and temples.

  Mrs. Linsom’s hair was feathery soft and a blend of blond shades so exact they seemed to run in a perfect pattern across her scalp—light, lighter, lightest.

  Vega yanked Mrs. Linsom’s head closer to her, Mrs. Linsom’s hands flying up to Vega’s, digging into her skin, but she wasn’t as strong as Vega—no amount of Pilates could level the field. Vega jammed the Springfield into the hollow of her eye so it hurt. It was not nestled; there was no nestling. Mrs. Linsom cried out at the shock of it.

  “2545!” she yelled.

  “What?” said Vega, annoyed.

  “2545,” she gasped. “The code to the wine cellar downstairs. 2545.”

  She had drawn some blood with her scrapes on the skin of Vega’s hand.

  “2545,” she said again. “You can check—I can come with you. I’m not lying.”

  Vega didn’t move or speak.

  “I gave her baby Valium…to make everything easier,” said Mrs. Linsom. “I wanted to be kind….”

  This was her begging, thought Vega, but she didn’t enjoy it.

  “You’re not coming with me,” said Vega.

  She could feel her shudder, and then she heard the dribble of urine on the carpet, running down Mrs. Linsom’s elegant pajama pants onto the floor. Like a puppy.

  Vega took the gun out of her eye and let go of her hair. She squatted to talk to her. Mrs. Linsom’s eyes were wide and bloodshot.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” said Vega. “I just wanted you to pee on yourself.”

  Vega took the double restraints from her inside pocket. She grabbed Mrs. Linsom’s wrist and pulled her to stand, which she did unstably, then led her to the piano.

  “Sit,” said Vega, bringing her hand down on Mrs. Linsom’s shoulder.

  Mrs. Linsom’s legs folded underneath her. Vega wrapped one cuff around Mrs. Linsom’s wrist and pulled the strap, which clicked as she tightened it. Then she looped the other cuff around the piano leg and locked the strap, Mrs. Linsom’s body lurching forward.

  “How do I get downstairs?” said Vega, standing up.

  Mrs. Linsom looked very small on the floor, her legs crisscrossed awkwardly.

  “Through the kitchen,” she said, her voice low. “The white door to the right of the refrigerator.”

  Vega left her and went to the kitchen, hit the lights with her palm and saw the white door. She walked to it and pressed the silver lever handle down and pulled it open. There was a staircase, well lit with wall sconces, and Vega stepped down, felt the air become cooler.

  At the bottom was a door, made of a knotty unfinished wood. It was arched at the top and had a black iron handle, weather-sealed jambs in the frame. Something new made to look old.

  Vega pushed the numbers into the keypad on the wall, and she heard the mechanism of the lock ticking and snapping. She opened the door.

  The first thing that hit her was the smell.

  —

  Cap raced through stoplights and signs down dark roads, one hand on the wheel, the other scrolling and dialing—Traynor, Junior, his neighbor Bosch. It would take too long to explain to 911 dispatch, who would send the fire department first. He left frantic short messages for them all and then he remembered—Em was at the station, fifteen minutes from Cap’s house if you obeyed traffic laws.

  “Cap?” said Em, picking up right away.

  “Em,” said Cap, swinging around a turn. “The man who took Kylie Brandt is at my house with Nell and he’s armed. I can’t explain—I’m five minutes out. Get some backup and meet me there.”

  He couldn’t control his breathing or the register of his voice, felt like the words were being choked from his throat.

  “I’m coming,” said Em, panting, running. And then, “She’s gonna be fine, Cap. Let’s get her. Drive.”

  Em hung up, and Cap drove, finally reaching his neighborhood, past the playground where he’d taken Nell after being up all night on third shift. Higher, higher, higher, she’d say on the big-girl swing, legs pumping to spike the velocity. His arms would seize every time she went up, as he imagined her hands losing hold of the chains and her falling to the ground, smashing her nose and breaking bones,
her screams echoing through his ears though they hadn’t even happened.

  Then he heard Jules’s criticism: “Just push her higher, Max. She’s not glass.”

  No, he thought now. More fragile than glass. Skin thin as newsprint.

  He slowed on his block and parked across the street from his house. He got out of the car and ran to his lawn. There were no lights on inside, but the front door was open, not wide. As he approached he saw the broken frame, splintered. He drew the Sig from his belt and went around to his office entrance.

  He unlocked the door and stepped inside. Closed the door quietly and slid his shoes off. He padded through his office, the street light coming through the blinds, making fat stripes across the floor and furniture. The door connecting his office to the rest of his house was open, the way he’d left it.

  He came into the living room, dark, quiet, the strip over the dishwasher the only light.

  Likeliest scenario, thought Cap. Linsom breaks the front doorframe, maybe muffles the nose of the gun and shoots the lock to keep it quiet. Nell doesn’t hear it anyway because of the headphones she wears to fall asleep, listening to the rat-a-tat of snare drumlines because she said it got the more difficult cadences into her subconscious. So Linsom finds her in her room asleep and what? She’s too old for his taste in terms of sexual assault, but would that stop him?

  Would he just kill her?

  No, said Vega in Cap’s head. Too much still to lose.

  He went up the stairs, skipping over the creaky step. Then he was in the hallway, and he heard Nell’s voice, hushed, talking.

  He covered his mouth so as not to gasp audibly with relief. He couldn’t make out the words and couldn’t guess at the situation—did Linsom have the gun on her? Was he restraining her? There was no way to know.

  All Cap had was surprise. The only thing he could do was come in fast and keep his aim steady.

  He put his back against the wall and moved sideways, Sig pointed toward Nell’s open door. He knew he just had to do it—swing around and if the shot was clear, take it.

  “So should we try that, Press?” he heard Nell say.

  Cap pivoted into the room, leading with the Sig, arms straight. There was Nell in her desk chair, not tied up or visibly injured, and Press Linsom, standing, hovering close to her, a .45 in his right hand, hanging at his side until he saw Cap.

  “Dad!” yelled Nell.

  Linsom jumped and put his arm around Nell’s neck, stuck the .45 against her cheek.

  Cap felt every nerve ending in his body catch fire as he huffed breath through his nose. Linsom looked tired and shocked, his hands shaking.

  Nell’s eyes were huge as they hunted Cap’s, trying to tell him things. She gripped the arms of the chair; her lips curled as she spoke.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” she said, her voice eerily calm. “Press and I have been talking. Right, Press?”

  Linsom didn’t answer her, kept staring at Cap.

  “He doesn’t want to hurt me,” said Nell, her voice cracking only a little. “He just wants to make sure his family’s okay.”

  Cap kept the Sig pointed at Linsom’s chest. Could he take the shot?

  “That’s good,” said Cap. “Mr. Linsom, if you put the gun down right now, I can help you and your family. If you don’t, I can’t. It’s just as plain as that.”

  It was difficult to tell if Linsom heard him. His hand still shook, the nose of the gun slipping around on Nell’s cheek. Nell watched Cap but didn’t flinch. Cap could not look at her. If he looked at her, he would make a bad decision.

  “Why don’t you tell him, Press,” said Nell, sounding like a proud parent at the science fair. “Tell my dad how far you and I came in two hours, all the stuff we talked about.”

  Linsom shook his head quickly.

  “You tell him,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” said Nell, swallowing air. “Okay, well, Press came in pretty upset when he woke me up, but then we got to talking. We all want the same thing….”

  She trailed off. Cap had to look at her. There were the streams of tears, one from each eye, following the bell shape of her cheekbones. Her eyes remained open and fierce, staring at Cap with a strangely familiar insistence. Don’t fuck this up, Dad.

  “To feel safe,” she said, like the air had been pulled out of her. “Not to be safe,” she added. “To feel safe.”

  Cap could not begin to think of how a sixteen-year-old had talked a psychopath out of killing her, but then again, this was Nell. And suddenly the true loss of them all—Ashley Cahill, Sydney McKenna, Kylie Brandt—hit him with the force of all the anthracite stuck underneath the foundation of his house. They would never get to be like Nell. They would never get to thrill and amaze and undo every stereotype of Teenage Girl for their parents. Or they would never get to torture and exhaust them, break curfew and drive drunk. But it didn’t matter—both outcomes were the tragedy.

  Cap felt the tears load up in his eyes but he didn’t dare blink. And then he didn’t think he moved but he must have, his elbow must have bent, the Sig must have moved an inch left or right, because Linsom saw it, his face lit up with panic as he took the gun off Nell and fired at Cap, a wild pitch.

  Nell screamed; Cap heard the round sail past his ears, cut into the wall behind him, and Linsom came toward him, waving the gun. Cap fired and got his shoulder. Linsom reared back, in shock.

  “Dad! Dad!” screamed Nell, out of the chair, kneeling on the floor.

  Cap was falling backward; he was losing his grip on the Sig, but why? He looked at his hand and tried to squeeze the grip and the trigger and actually thought, Why can’t you hold on to it? And then he felt the side of his head wet and cold and saw the blood, his blood, sprayed onto the old uneven panels of the wooden floor and realized he’d been hit.

  Linsom ran, shoved Cap out of the way, against the back wall of the hallway, and then he kept going, slowed and disoriented by the shot in his shoulder, hurtling down the stairs.

  Cap struggled to stand, and then Nell came to him and held his face in her hands.

  “It’s just your ear, Dad—he just got your ear, that’s all,” she said.

  As soon as she said it, Cap felt the blood surge to his ear, the whole thing humming like a harp.

  “Come on,” she said, putting the Sig firmly into Cap’s hand. “We have to stop him.”

  Nell threaded her arms through his and pulled him up to stand, and once he locked his legs he felt like he could walk, step-by-step, and they headed for the stairs, slow and then fast. Cap heard one siren at first and then another and another, stacked on top of one another like a symphony.

  “Are you okay?” Cap said, the words muted in his ears.

  “I’m fine,” said Nell. “Don’t worry.”

  They watched Linsom stagger out the front door, and Cap almost fell down the last three stairs, but Nell held him up. They made it to the door and then the porch, and they saw Linsom on the lawn. And there was Em, getting out of his car with his gun drawn, aimed at Linsom, as the sirens grew louder and closer.

  “Drop your weapon! Hands in the air!” shouted Em, advancing across the lawn.

  Linsom didn’t react, perhaps didn’t hear him. Four cruisers and two unmarked cars came from both the cross streets, lights spinning and sirens shrieking.

  “Drop your weapon, hands in the air!” Em yelled again.

  Linsom raised his gun, and Em fired. Linsom stumbled back, hand on his side, dropped the gun, fell backward. Cap watched his eyes blinking once, twice. Then stop.

  Nell pushed her face into Cap’s shirt. He hugged her with one arm and set the Sig on the railing, caught Em’s eye and pointed at him. You. Em pointed back, his face filled with a roiling energy. No, you.

  Cars and vans kept coming. The street filled with every cop in town, newsmen and their cameras, and one ambulance.

  —

  Baby powder.

  The overwhelming perfume of it. Vega had no emotional response to baby powder but knew ot
her people did. It reminded them of babies. These same people talked about babies’ cheeks and thighs and their respective degrees of thickness, how these were marks of a healthy baby. The smell reminded them of this—fat little bodies rolling around in the artificial dust of baby powder, healthy and not sick. Safe.

  The wine cellar was not a big room, five by fifteen, the long wall consisting of a floor-to-ceiling rack for the red next to a refrigerator for the white. Both were empty. The air was moist, a small black humidifier whirring quietly next to the door. Pucks mounted across the ceiling cast faint spotlights.

  Then, in the corner, a toddler’s bed—Vega recognized the size. She remembered visiting her brother a few years back, seeing her three-year-old niece in one just like it.

  But on this one lay Kylie Brandt, too big for it, curled up on top of the blankets in a white nightgown. She was either dead or sleeping.

  Vega approached the bed and leaned down. The light was dim, but she saw it—the rise and fall of Kylie’s chest.

  Her mouth was open half an inch. Her breath was stale, but her skin smelled sweet and floral.

  “Kylie,” said Vega, not too loudly.

  She didn’t move or wake up.

  “Kylie.”

  Still she slept. Wasn’t it Sleeping Beauty, Vega tried to remember, where the whole kingdom falls asleep with her? All of them drugged, frozen where they stood, the bakers kneading dough, the cobblers hammering shoes, everyone. Not Denville, thought Vega. All of us are fucking wide-awake forever.

  She placed her hand on Kylie’s arm and said once more, “Kylie.”

  As soon as Vega touched her, she woke up with a sharp intake of air and jumped like a flea to the farthest corner of the bed. Her face looked like it did in the pictures, like the video in the ice cream shop, but was also now transformed into a strange sculpture that was not her, full of fear and drugs and trauma, stoned but aware.

  “It’s okay,” said Vega, regretting it instantly, knowing that was exactly what Press and Lindsay Linsom told her. “Your mom, Jamie, sent me here to get you.”

  Kylie shook her head.

  “She’s dead. Mr. Linsom says she’s dead. Her and Bailey,” said Kylie quickly, her voice raw, the information by now rote.