“So,” Cap said. “I’ll get right to it here so you can go back to your lives and your family.”
He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands to show them: this is a conversation, not an interrogation.
“We have reason to believe that Kylie Brandt’s kidnapper had some kind of connection to her through her ballet class initially. Ashley Cahill in Lebanon also took ballet, and I understand Sydney did as well, that right?”
“Yes,” said Erica. Her husband nodded.
“I guess what we just need to know here is if you remember anything strange surrounding the ballet class in particular. Did you take her to ballet generally, Mrs. McKenna?”
“Yes,” said Erica again.
“Great. Let’s start with the teacher—her name was in the file.” Cap reached behind them and grabbed the folder, opened it. “Nancy Topper?”
“Miss Nancy, they called her, all the girls.”
“Miss Nancy,” repeated Cap. “Anything seem off with her? Anything stand out?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Erica, glancing at McKenna. “Syd liked her well enough.”
“Okay,” said Cap. “Now can you recall anyone, anything that didn’t seem right at the class, or maybe where the class took place? At the”—he flipped through the pages of the file, searching for the name—“Junior Tiptoes Dance Studio?”
Erica shook her head, appeared confused.
“I’m sorry, like what?”
“Anything,” said Cap. Still they both looked at him with blank faces. “I apologize, I’ll be a little more specific. Do you remember anyone else, besides Miss Nancy, who was in and out of the studio and may have seen Sydney? A deliveryman, a salesman, someone who worked in a nearby business?”
Erica gripped the small purple handbag in her lap.
“No,” she said, sounding genuinely sad. “I’m sorry, I just don’t remember anyone like that.”
“The police asked us all these kinds of questions when she first disappeared,” added McKenna. “We made lists of all the people—all the parents of the other kids, names and numbers.”
“I understand,” said Cap, holding his hands up. “And again, I’m sorry to have to rehash this. It’s just that we can’t take anything as a coincidence right now, and three little girls who all took ballet—and the same equipment distributor serviced all three ballet studios—it’s something we noticed.”
Cap flipped through the pages in the folder and didn’t speak for a minute. He wanted to see if the McKennas might offer up anything else without his prompting. The thing about it was, he believed what they were saying, both of them, but he could not shake the feeling of a bad tooth decaying in the gums.
That’s when he saw the picture. It was a Christmas card showing the whole family—a glossy green strip with all of their smiling faces, the girls in green dresses, the boy made to wear a sweater vest, and McKenna and Erica, both at least twenty or thirty pounds heavier. Their tragedy explained the weight loss easily, but their faces were different too, Erica’s nose now smaller and turned up at the end while in the picture it was longer and thicker. McKenna’s eyes now wide without a wrinkle, while for that Christmas, tired and furrowed after undoubtedly driving a third-shift hack. In Cap’s experience it was seldom that parents looked better and healthier after losing a child, yet here the McKennas were, right in front of him, two years after their eight-year-old had vanished, looking like superheroes on their off day.
—
It was close to ten when Vega pulled into Laurel Acres Mobile Home Park Estates, which sounded to her like the result of a word jumble game. The GPS continued to announce she had reached her destination because the roads of the park were not registered on any map except its own internal directory. Now she was going from the notes on her phone, given to her by Hollows, who’d gotten them from Ashley Cahill’s mother.
The roads were paved, set out in a grid, two or three lots per block, all the homes raised on concrete foundations, built long and narrow. Most were in decent shape with fresh vinyl siding, flower boxes under perfectly square windows.
Vega found the street and then the number. There was no curb or driveway so she turned in and parked perpendicular to the house, next to an old hatchback. She got out, saw that the place looked the same as the others more or less, blue gray in color, dim lights on inside, a blue bulb over a screened porch.
She went up the steps, pulled back the screen door, and stood on the porch, a blank wiry mat under her feet. She pressed the doorbell and waited. Cool air blew through the screen and went right into her ears, a sharp little sting.
The woman who opened the door had milk-white hair pulled back in a ponytail, wore a sleeveless jersey dress with bare legs and feet underneath. Her eyes were such a dark brown they were almost black. She puckered her lips, chewing gum, Vega assumed.
She said, “You’re someone else.”
Vega paused, then said, “Alice Vega.”
“The guy I talked to said he’d send someone else, meaning not him.”
“Yes, Hollows, right?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“And you’re Stacy Gibbons?” said Vega.
“Yeah. Used to be Cahill. I’m her,” said Stacy, moving the gum to her molars, jaw clicking and clamping. “You can come in.”
Vega stepped inside, and Stacy moved behind her to shut and lock the door. Like the whole park, everything was laid out in neat squares here, the living room first with an L-shaped couch fit perfectly to one corner and its walls, leading into the square of the dining room with a square glass table. There was nothing on the table except an empty bowl in the middle. Vega glanced around and saw every table and surface was the same—no knickknacks, cups, magazines. Her eyes jumped to paintings on the wall—nondescript flowers in vases, a sailboat on a calm sea. They reminded her of pictures hanging in a hotel room.
“It came like this,” said Stacy, reading Vega’s mind. “Furniture and everything. My ex gave me the down payment so I’d stay away from him and his new wife.” She glanced around the room, then, and added, “It worked.”
She studied Vega quickly, head to feet and back up again. “The guy, Hollows, said there wasn’t anything new about Ashley. That this is about those other girls up in Denville.”
“That’s right,” said Vega.
Stacy did some short nods, continued to work the gum in her mouth, pursing and relaxing her lips.
“Okay, then. You can have a seat.”
Vega sat on one side of the L, Stacy on the other. The jersey dress hiked up a bit, revealing bald, bruised knees. Stacy didn’t make a move to cover herself, didn’t seem to notice. She tried to keep her hands in her lap but was having some trouble doing so, rubbing her thumbs between fingers like she was kneading a knot of dough in each hand.
“You think it’s the same guys, whoever took Ashley?” she said.