Teddy was sitting on the couch in Detective Van Slyde’s temporary office at the Brambles Hotel when the alert came that the 7-Eleven just north of Pacific Palisades had been robbed.
Officer Jones opened the door to the office.
“You got the call for the 7-Eleven?” he asked. “They’re short-staffed at the station tonight.”
“Are you taking the call?”
“I’m headed there now,” Officer Jones said. “When do you go off duty?”
“I’ll be here.” Van Slyde checked his phone. “I’m not leaving until we get some results.”
“I’ve got something from one of the domestic staff I interviewed just now,” Officer Jones said.
“Tell me.”
“She’d seen a woman today who used to work here, and this woman went on maternity leave about three months ago but the baby died.”
“Okay.”
“You told me to tell you everything I heard whether it seemed important or not.”
“Of course,” Detective Van Slyde said. “I meant it.”
“She tried to chat with the woman, who was nervous and skittered away and disappeared.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all the information she had. One of the questions we were asking the staff was did you see anything out of the ordinary today, and that’s what she said.” He checked his notebook. “Her name is Mary Coin and skittered is my word, not hers.”
“The domestic you interviewed is Mary Coin?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t get the name of the former employee?”
“She didn’t remember the name, but since she was on maternity leave, I’m sure the hotel could identify her. See you later.” He closed the door behind him.
“What about Jess?” Teddy asked after Officer Jones left for the 7-Eleven.
Detective Van Slyde rested his hand on her arm.
“Baby Ruby can’t talk and move on her own, so the LAPD is focusing a lot of their search on Jess right now and hoping she and Baby Ruby might be in the same place.”
“Me too,” Teddy said. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“I am going to need to depend on you here. We need as much information as you can give us and I count on the fact that you’re levelheaded.”
Levelheaded!
Her parents would be astonished to hear that. No one had ever called her levelheaded before.
Teddy’s phone rang and she reached into her back pocket.
“Your sister?” Detective Van Slyde asked quickly.
Teddy looked at the phone and shook her head.
“My mother,” she said.
“Teddy!” Delilah said, loud enough that her voice filled the small office. “Where are you?”
“In the office where Detective Van Slyde is working.”
“He still hasn’t a clue about Jess or Baby Ruby?”
“I don’t think so, Mom.”
“I’m coming down, okay?”
Teddy looked at Detective Van Slyde, who nodded, reaching out for the phone.
“You can certainly come down, Mrs. O’Fines. Just understand that we are working on every lead we get and, though we haven’t found her yet, we’re not going to bed until we do.”
Van Slyde was a tall, large man, flushed in the cheeks, with big hands, a soft belly, and a wide, generous smile. He gave the phone back to Teddy and leaned over, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded, and spoke quietly.
“Tell me about Jess.”
“She’s the good girl in the family,” Teddy said. “The do everything you’re asked to do girl. She gets good grades and doesn’t complain. We call her the Save-the-Marriage Baby because she’s the baby my parents had in order to save their marriage.”
“If you were to guess, what do you imagine she might be doing right now?”
“I am pretty sure she’s trying to find Baby Ruby herself.”
Teddy told Detective Van Slyde again about the small man in the bright green shirt that Jess had seen just before Baby Ruby disappeared.
“The man saw Jess holding Ruby. He was walking in her direction when she closed the door. The same man she chased through the lobby, down the steps into the parking garage, and lost.”
“I have that in my notes.”
“And then there was the woman hiding in the linen closet and smelling of rosemary,” Teddy said.
“Rosemary?”
“Jess is an amazing sniffer.”
Teddy pulled her knees up under her chin.
“There’s another thing,” she said. “After my parents were divorced and it was only Jess and me at home, my mother wanted to find a new husband, so she was out a lot at night. So Jess and I had a detective agency and we, especially Jess, imagined crimes. After school, we would solve the crime and find the criminal. Jess was excellent at this game.”
“So you think she has taken matters into her own hands?”
“I do,” Teddy said. “I think that when I lost touch with her it was because she saw maybe the man whom she followed through the garage, or else the woman she saw in the linen closet. She’s fearless, Jess.”
“You’d recognize the man?”
“I think so. He looks like a boy. A black-haired sort of soft-faced boy.”
“I’ll add that to the description.”
“Also,” Teddy said, feeling the need to tell this detective the truth, “I should tell you that I live in a home for girls in trouble because I’m a shoplifter.”
Detective Van Slyde’s expression did not change at all, his blue eyes warm as the sea.
“You are?”
She nodded.
“That’s not the worst thing,” he said. “Shoplifting is against the law but it doesn’t hurt anyone,” he said. “I am in the business of finding people who hurt other people. You’re an exceptional young woman, Teddy. You’ll get over shoplifting.”
Tears were spilling down Teddy’s cheeks as the door to the office opened and Delilah was there.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, but you must be on vacation, Detective Van Slyde.”
“I can tell you what little we know so far. Nothing confirmed, of course, except that it appears your daughter, Jess, has taken matters into her own hands and she still isn’t answering her cell phone.”
Jess woke up when the car stopped and the music was turned off.
“There’s someone in the 7-Eleven,” Angel said from the backseat.
“I see her. She’s buying milk and walking to the cash register. So she’ll pay and leave with her milk and then, unless somebody else comes, I’ll have a little time.”
“Be careful.”
“I’ve never robbed a store. I don’t know what be careful means.”
“The person at the cash register looks like a boy. He’s probably younger than sixteen, so as long as no one else is working there …”
The door opened and Jess could feel the driver’s seat empty. In the backseat, Angel was whimpering.
“Here comes the woman with her milk,” Angel said. “Act casual, like you’re just doing an errand.”
But there was no answer.
The whimpering stopped.
“He’s in the store now,” she said. “Can you hear me, girl?”
Jess lay very still. She had a cramp in her leg and was counting over and over again — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4 — to distract herself.
“Of course you can hear me. I know you,” Angel said. “I saw you in the linen closet a few hours ago and you saw me. We spoke.”
Angel was silent for a moment, but nervous. Jess could tell by the short, fast breaths she took, the tiny birdsong in her throat.
“Jack’s looking at the magazines,” she said. “I don’t know why he’s spending time looking at the magazines when someone could come in any second. Now he’s gone to the counter and the boy is handing him a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter and he’s getting his money out of his pocket and, oh my god, I can’t look.”
She was whimpering again.
Jess kept counting and it helped. She didn’t think about the cramp if she kept counting, didn’t miss a beat, but if her mind wandered just for a second, the pain was unbearable and she wanted to jump out of her skin.
“Oh no, oh my god,” Angel whispered from the backseat, and then the door opened and he was back in the driver’s seat — the smell of him was cigarettes and something sweet — Jess didn’t recognize the smell, maybe coconut, stronger than it had been before. The car was in reverse, the squeaking sound of rubber tires, a right turn, and they were moving at a regular speed.
“Why don’t you drive faster?” Angel asked.
“Why drive faster and call attention to ourselves? Maybe get arrested for speeding. Now that wouldn’t be too smart, would it, Angel.”
“Did you get the money?”
“Weren’t you watching me?”
“I was too scared to watch.”
“I got the money. It was quite easy and the boy was a wimp. I grabbed him around the shoulders, gagged him, dropped with him to the ground so we weren’t visible behind the counter, tied his arms and legs. The cash register was open, so I took all the bills — a ton of bills — and skipped the change and left.”
“Now what?”
“Now someone will come into the 7-Eleven any moment — the 7-Eleven is busy around here on a Friday night and I was very lucky — they’ll see the boy behind the counter, ungag him, untie him, and call the police. When the police come he’ll give them a description of me — probably the boy didn’t see the car — he’s not the sharpest tack in the drawer — so we need to go somewhere pronto.”
“Venice Beach,” Angel said. “A lot of cars, a lot of people. No one will notice.”
“I don’t think so, Angel. I don’t think you’re a very good criminal.”
“Then where?”
“We’re going back to your sister’s, around back, park in the space behind her house, and count the money.”
“What about the girl?”
There was a long silence and in the front of the car, her face pressed into the carpet, her eyes wide open, Jess stopped counting. Would she have a chance to talk to them? She was good at talking. She could save herself by talking. And did they have it in mind to hurt her or take her with them? And for what reason would they take her with them? Better to dump her somewhere dark where no one would see her until the morning light. They probably wouldn’t take out the gag or untie her, but if they did, she would talk. She would congratulate Jack for robbing the 7-Eleven, tell him how clever and capable he was at robbery; that her sister was also a robber, but of things, not money; she would tell them that they were not bad people, not criminals, at least. Only people who needed something they didn’t have, and she wondered, it had just crossed her mind, if what they wanted was a baby.
“So what about the girl?”
“We’ll dump the girl,” he said, taking a left turn and then a right, slowing to a stop.
“She’ll be able to identify you when the police talk to her.”
“I won’t be around to identify, Angel, and nor will you.”
“Why do you think no one will find us?”
“We’ll be in Kansas.”
“Kansas?”
“The girl has ears, Angel, so do you think with her in the car, knowing what’s going on, I’ll tell the truth about where we’re going?”
The car turned, probably into a driveway, and the engine turned off.
“Don’t turn the light on inside the car,” Angel said. “Someone will see us.”
“I have a flashlight so I’m counting the money, and if there’s enough, I’m heading in the house to pay your sister. Did you notice the light is on in her bedroom?”
There was a long silence except for the ruffle of paper and Jess rubbing her face against the carpet.
“Done,” he said.
“How much?”
“Eight hundred and twenty-five dollars,” he said. “I have plenty in my wallet to make up the difference.”
The car door opened.
“Scrunch down, Angel. I don’t want anyone driving by to see you.”