Larkin returned to the vinyl chair and remained silent.
In their brief absence, Megan had raised the bed to a more comfortable sitting position, found a mindless reality show to watch, and was now leaning her head back on the squishy hospital pillow. “He’d locked me in the bedroom closet when he was at work both days,” she murmured. “Said if I made any noise—tried to get a neighbor’s attention or something like that—he’d kill them. He said the woman who lived above him was eighty years old and I’d be responsible for someone’s dead grandma.” The admittance seemed to have sobered Megan’s attitude. “So I stayed quiet. He left me food and water, and he hadn’t done nothing, so… I don’t know. I thought he’d let me go soon. I thought that when he came home in the middle of the day, but then I heard him talking to himself and, like, practically running back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, and I started to think something was really wrong.”
“Did you hear what he was saying?”
“Mostly swearing. A lot of ‘fucks’ and ‘shits.’”
“Then what?”
“He unlocked the closet,” Megan explained. “Told me that he was gonna get my money and we just had to go to the bank to pick it up.”
“Did he tell you what bank? Or where it was located?” Doyle tried, clearly angling for an idea of where Reynold thought he could have possibly run for safety.
Megan shook her head. “He turned away to grab my boots and I saw the taser tucked into the back of his pants and that’s when I thoughtwe aren’t going to a bank. I put the boots on really slow, even though he started yelling at me to hurry the fuck up. I told him I had to pee, that I felt sick, I needed some water… just like… anything to not leave, because I thought he was going to electrocute me and throw me into the back of a car or something. He was all sweaty and shouting, and then you guys were knocking on the door and—and that’s about it.”
“That was smart thinking,” Doyle told her. “Really smart.”
Megan smiled, soaking up the praise like a plant left to wilt in a windowsill and it’d finally gotten a gulp of water.
Doyle asked next, “Where did you meet Reynold? The exact place he approached you with the offer of money in exchange for photos.”
“Fifty-Seventh Street.”
Larkin perked in his seat before leaning forward. “You mean, down in the subway.”
Megan glanced at him, shrugged that ambivalent shrug.
“Which Fifty-Seventh Street station,” Larkin pressed. “The Q, N, R, or F.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why.”
“Because if the cops knew, everyone would have to leave.”
“Megan,” Doyle said, always so gentle at the moment it mattered most. “Detective Larkin is going to figure it out, whether you tell him or not. Remember, we want to keep Reynold from hurting you or any other kid, ever again.”
Her still-chubby cheeks grew a rosy pink before she sniffed loudly. “I don’t want anyone gettin’ in trouble.”
“No one’s in trouble,” Doyle insisted.
“You won’t tell them it was me who said something, will you?”
“I promise.”
Megan looked down at her hands wringing the blanket on her lap. “The F station. Sometimes… when you got no couch, you can go there for the night.”
“Other kids spend the night on the platform?” Doyle asked.
“Not the platform,” Megan said with a despondent shake of her head. “In the tunnel. That’s where I met Gary… Monday night.”
Doyle asked, “Had you seen Gary there before?”
Another small headshake. “No. I think he found out about our hangout from Creepy Dicky.”
“Who’s Creepy Dicky?” Doyle asked, hastily jotting down everything Megan said.
“He’s this old guy. Everyone calls him Dicky. He lives in the tunnel. He’s been there since forever, I think. Sometimes he hangs out with us and no one really wants him there because he’s always strung out, but he’ll bring chips or Gatorade for us, so…. I haven’t seen him in a while, though.”
