The Summer Children (The Collector Series Book 3)

by Dot Hutchison

  “All right.” Putting a hand on my shoulder, Holmes levers herself to standing. “I’ll let you know if we learn anything.”

  My cozy little home looks the same, which feels odd. It should feel different, shouldn’t it, knowing what happened the other night? Everything is just slightly out of place, moved and moved back by officers looking to see if the killer entered and left something behind, but it doesn’t really account for the sense of change that isn’t. There’s probably a word for that, German or Portuguese or Japanese or something. Not English or Spanish, anyway, or what little is left from my high school Italian. How can you be homesick when you’re home?

  But that’s what it feels like, a longing for the moment just before, when this was still my sanctuary, the place that was mine and mine alone unless I specifically invited someone over. The place I could lock out the rest of the world for a few hours, my little paradise with its green open spaces and no woods till several streets over.

  By the time I’ve marched myself through a succession of chores and repacked my bags, I am beyond ready to leave again. I’ve sometimes run to work, or to Siobhan’s or Vic’s or a date, but it’s always been running to, not running from. I can’t stand feeling like I need to run away from my home.

  Picking up the bear on the nightstand, I run my thumbs over his worn, fading velvet nap, the nubby bow tie, the plastic eyes that have been sewn back on many times. I remember when he was given to me, and by whom, and all the comfort I’ve gained from him over the years. What kind of comfort is Ronnie going to get from the bear the killing angel brought him? After a minute, I put him back down and walk away, locking the handful of locks behind me.

  Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was scared of doctors.

  It wasn’t the shots that worried her, unlike most of the kids in the waiting room. She was in so much pain every day she barely noticed the pinprick of the clean slide of the needle into her arm.

  No, she was scared of doctors because they lied.

  They told her she was perfectly healthy, that everything was wonderful. Daddy was more careful about leaving marks if she had an appointment coming up, but she wasn’t sure it mattered. Even when there were bruises, the doctors would just cluck and tell her to be more careful when she was playing. They asked how she felt but didn’t listen when she told them everything hurt.

  Her left arm, all the way up near the shoulder, had a bruise that refused to heal, because her daddy grabbed her there and squeezed, over and over and over. They told her mama to be careful of shirts with elastic bands in the sleeves while she was growing, that they could cut off circulation and leave lasting bruises.

  Once, and only once, she decided to be brave and tell the whole truth. The doctor was young and pretty, and had the kindest eyes. She wanted to trust eyes that kind. So she told the doctor everything, or tried to—until her mama cut her off and scolded her for watching the wrong kinds of TV and getting confused. The doctor nodded along and laughed about fertile imaginations.

  Mama told Daddy as soon as he got home.

  For two weeks, his temper prowled like a tiger through the house, but he didn’t touch either of them, just in case someone was coming. The little girl was scared out of her mind, but they were the best two weeks. Even her arm started to heal.

  But no one came. No one was coming.

  6

  I stay at Eddison’s on Tuesday because my house still feels unsettling, and Siobhan still isn’t talking to me. For all our fights over the past three years, and there have been many, we’ve never had this cold silence.

  I stay at Eddison’s again on Wednesday because we have to be on our way to the airport at half past fuck it’s morning. Sterling joins us for the second sleepover, stretching out on the couch in leggings and a giant navy blue T-shirt that says “Female Body Inspector” in tall yellow blocks. Eddison stares at the lettering, blinks, opens his mouth . . . and then buries his face in his hands with a pained groan before disappearing back into his bedroom.

  Sterling and I look at each other, and she shrugs before digging out five dollars from her purse. “You win. I thought for sure he’d say you should be wearing it,” she admits, handing me the bill.

  “Until he accidentally tells you to calm your tits, he isn’t going to make any other sex-adjacent commentaries,” I tell her, tucking the money behind my credentials and dropping the case back on top of my bag. “He’s still feeling out boundaries, so to speak, and he’s under pretty strict orders not to break you.”

  “Vic?”

  “Priya.”

  She grins and shakes the ponytail kink from her hair. “She’s a good kid.”

  “Need anything?”

  “Nah, should be good.”

  I’ve already brushed my teeth and scrubbed off my makeup, so I crawl in next to Eddison, flick out the lights, and shift until I’ve found a comfortable position. Several minutes later, he turns onto his side. “We should both get that shirt,” he says.

  “I have that shirt.”

  “Really?”

  “The mothers gave it to me for my birthday a few years back. I wear it running.”

  “I need that shirt.”

  “You don’t need that shirt.”

  “But—”

  “You have never seen you in a bar. You don’t need that shirt.”

  The sound of giggling seeps through the closed door, followed by a thump and more giggling, which I’m pretty sure was Sterling laughing herself off the couch.

  “I always forget the door is that thin,” Eddison sighs.

  “I don’t.”

  The sheets rustle as he brings up one leg, plants his foot firmly against my ass, and shoves me off the bed.

  Sterling’s giggling gains some hiccups.

  The flights out to California pass mostly in a stupor of sleepiness and paperwork, as much as we can manage on our tiny trays, at any rate. The three-day conference is focused on making sure local police departments know when and how they can avail themselves of federal resources, and which agency they should call for which kinds of problems. In between presentations, there’s a lot of reassuring worried or belligerent local cops from across the country and shit-talking with reps from other agencies. It’s the closest thing to a working vacation we’ll ever have.

  We get back to Eddison’s apartment a little past three on Sunday morning, because God knows the Bureau isn’t going to pay for hotel rooms one more night than absolutely necessary, and Eddison ends up on the couch this time. There may have been some collapsing involved, the inevitable crash that comes of cramming him full of sugar on the second half of the second flight to make sure he was hyper enough to drive us safely back from the airport. Between the two of us, Sterling and I manage to strip him down to boxers and undershirt and get him tucked into the couch in a way that should keep him from falling off but will probably confuse him in the morning.

  “Go on in,” I tell Sterling, hip checking her toward the bedroom. “I just have to dig clothes out.”

  After she closes the door to change, Eddison makes a remarkable recovery and looks up at me. “You’ve got her?”

  “I’ve got her.”

  Because today was supposed to be Eliza Sterling’s wedding day, and being a team—being family—means she’ll be lucky to piss in peace because we’re not leaving her alone. I turn off her personal cell and switch her work cell to silent, leaving both with Eddison. Having a grumpy bastard screen calls is remarkably effective, really. After changing into pajamas, I brush my teeth and scrub off my makeup at the kitchen sink, then check the locks and turn off all the lights on my way into the bedroom.

  Sterling sits on the bed, back in her shirt and leggings with her hair fluffed all around her, holding Eddison’s alarm clock in her lap, with a stricken expression on her face. The soft click of the door closing behind me makes her look up, and her eyes are glassy with tears. “I thought today was still yesterday,” she whispers.

  Working in the Bureau—or an
y law enforcement, really—has a cost. For Sterling, the chance to advance and join a prestigious team came at the cost of her engagement. From what little she’s said about it, there wasn’t a chance in hell of him following her to Virginia. When she came home bubbling over with news of a promotion, he didn’t understand why she thought she’d be working after they got married.

  Even when something’s wrong, the ending of the thing hurts.

  Gently prying the clock from her hands, I put it back on the nightstand, flick off the lights, and nudge her under the covers. She doesn’t make any objection when I press up beside her, and while I have the uncomfortable feeling our hair will get knotted together at some point in the night (it’s happened before), I’m not about to move away. Her mother exploded when the engagement was broken, so she can’t go home to Denver for hugs, and while both Jenny and Marlene Hanoverian would be only too happy to mother her as much as she’ll let them, we’re not going to wake them up at three-thirty on a Sunday morning.

  So I’m here to give her as many hugs as she needs, and unlike Eddison, I won’t feel a whit self-conscious. And if she happens to cry a couple of times during what’s left of the night . . . well. She’s in pain, and I sure as hell won’t judge her for it.

  Late in the morning, we’re both woken up by the smell of bacon frying, and it only takes a few minutes to untangle our hair enough to get out of bed and shuffle out to investigate. Eddison does not cook. Eddison gets bored of anything that takes more attention than toast. But it’s Vic who stands at the stove, giving us a salute with the greasy tongs, while Eddison scowls down at the pile of potatoes and the large grater Vic must have brought with him, because it’s certainly nothing Eddison’s going to bother keeping in his own kitchen.

  Sterling gives the guys a sleepy smile, though she’s pale and her eyes are still pink and puffy. “Thanks,” she says softly.

  “I didn’t get a single call from another agency about you three starting a blood feud with other teams,” he replies, and it’s sort of an acknowledgment. As much as he’s going to give, anyway, when the conversation pains her so.

  “You don’t say?” She drifts over to the table and sits on top of it, where she can see over the counter into the kitchen. “Nice to know they didn’t snitch.”

  “Don’t scare them at all, or scare them so much they’re afraid to talk.” He flips the bacon, reaching for a turkey baster to siphon off some of the extra grease. “Anything in the middle is asking for trouble.”

  Sterling may or may not realize that he’s purposefully distracting her, giving her something to say without making it have weight. Ordinarily she would, but Vic does this for all of us when we’re hurting. It’s one of his gifts: let me distract you, let me fill the silence for you, until you decide there’s something you need to say.

  We eat brunch, and when Vic heads back home to work on some chores around the house, the three of us go for a run and then take turns in the shower, using up all the hot water. We kidnapped Sterling straight from work on Wednesday, so she’s not surprised when we grab our bags and chivvy her out to Eddison’s car.

  During the drive, my phone buzzes with a text, and I flinch. Fortunately, the message is from Priya, not Holmes. You’ve got Eliza?

  Yeah, we’ve got her.

  Thank you.

  Three years ago, when Priya was being stalked by the bastard who murdered her sister, Sterling was on the team from the Denver field office—along with Vic’s old partner, Finney, and the third member of their team, Agent Archer—that checked in on Priya and pursued the stalker. Partly because of choices made during that sequence of events, mostly because of repeating those mistakes in another case, Archer is no longer an agent with the FBI. In spite of Archer, maybe even because of him, Priya and Sterling bonded and kept in touch after the case was resolved.

  Priya was delighted when Vic and Finney conspired to steal Sterling for our team. It doesn’t shock me that she knows what it cost, or that she’s worried today. As Sterling said, Priya’s a good kid.

  Sterling gives us a lopsided smile when the car pulls up in front of a bar a few minutes after it opens for the day. It’s one of the quieter bars in town, the kind where groups of friends gather to nurse a drink or two over hours of laughter and conversation, rather than have to shout over pulsing music or the din of crowds of other people. I steer Sterling to a semi-private booth in a corner while Eddison goes up to order the first round and let the bartenders know that we’ll be driving her home.

  “I don’t even know why I’m sad,” she says suddenly, somewhere into hour three. “I wasn’t even happy with him.”

  “Then why were you going to marry him?” Eddison asks, picking at the damp, peeling label of his beer.

  “My mom was over the moon when he asked. He did it in front of both sets of parents, the whole restaurant looking on because it was this giant spectacle . . .” She scowls at the bright blue shot in her hand, and knocks it back without a wince. “I didn’t feel like I could say no that publicly, you know? And then our mothers were so happy, and so full of plans, and every time I tried to talk about it, they said it was just nerves, that it was natural for a bride to be anxious, and I just . . . Everyone else seemed so happy, and I thought maybe I was just wrong.”

  The next round of shots and beers comes with three glasses of water, too, because we’re trying to get her drunk, not dead.

  “He said if I came to Virginia, I was coming alone, and I was so relieved,” she continues a little while later, like twenty or so minutes of companionable silence didn’t happen. “Like there was finally this tangible thing that I could point to and say this, this is why, and no one could tell me it was in my head.”

  “But then they thought you should stay and make it work?” I surmise, and she nods miserably.

  “But why am I sad?”

  Because the first time the price is high—the first time this job asks for too large a piece of ourselves and we feel the bleed for weeks and months—is always sad. “Because doors close,” I say instead, “and we can still miss what was on the other side even if we choose to walk away.”

  “I still have the dress. He insisted I had to get it right away.”

  “If you’ve already spent thousands of dollars on a dress, you’re less likely to call it off,” Eddison offers quietly. “He knew you weren’t happy.”

  “Do I burn it?”

  Eddison scratches at his scalp, the curls in his dark hair more obvious than usual. He really needs to get them trimmed. “I think you do whatever you want with it. Burn it, throw it away, keep it for the real deal.”

  Sterling gapes at him, looking properly scandalized for the first time since I’ve known her. “You don’t keep a dress for another wedding!” she tries to whisper. The bartender looks over at us with raised eyebrows, so clearly that attempt didn’t work.

  “But isn’t that one of the things you’re supposed to look for? Making sure everyone can wear it again?”

  “That’s for bridesmaids’ dresses!”

  He lifts his fresh beer, the foam licking at his upper lip, and winks at me. That clever bastard. “Aren’t those just identical to the wedding dress?”

  “No, they’re—well, they used to be, actually, but . . .” And off she goes, giving us a rambling but mostly coherent history of bridal attendant costumes and traditions around the world, the kind of champion-level nerdery she tries really, really hard not to show at work because it’s difficult enough for her to get taken seriously by anyone outside the team. When she transitions to the soulless takeover by the bridal industry, Eddison discreetly replaces her empty pint glass with a fresh beer.

  Somewhere around hour six, as the three of us are eating the scraps of an enormous appetizer platter, he points a chicken wing at me and Sterling, side by side on the opposite side of the booth. “We can all agree I’ve been behaving myself, so I finally get to ask: What the hell do the shirts mean?”

  Sterling collapses into gales of bright, unrestr
ained laughter that make half the bar smile in response. I just grin and drink my gin and tonic. The shirts we’re wearing are plain white cotton, with “I Survived Dinner with Guido and Sal” scrawled across the front, souvenirs from a meal that defies all explanation or retelling. Eddison should be forever sorry he skipped out on that dinner in New York at the beginning of summer.

  Sterling has one small bout of tears around eight. It’s six o’clock mountain time, and in another life, she’d be getting introduced as Mrs. Dickhead Umptysquat right about now. It’s not him she’s crying over, but rather, finally coming to grips with the fact that your life has taken an entirely different direction than the one you expected. You draw a map, you make a plan, and then it’s all suddenly upended, and you’re so caught up in the changes as they happen that it doesn’t really sink in until further down the road. I wrap an arm around her shoulders, hugging her tight, and the distinctly uncomfortable Eddison silently excuses himself from the table.

  And that’s okay. Dealing with crying people will never be his strongest point, but he’s supportive in other ways that matter just as much.

  Like coming back with an overfull basket of fried mushrooms, which he can’t stand but are Sterling’s absolute favorite food. She accepts one with a sniffle and a tremulous smile, and we all politely ignore the faint blush seeping across Eddison’s cheeks.

  A little after ten, Eddison and I settle the bill between us, leaving Vic’s contribution as a tip for the very discreet bartenders and waiters who have responded to our hand signals and otherwise left us alone. Sterling slumps against my side, sleepy eyed but curious, occasionally lapsing into soft giggles at nothing in particular. She’s a very tame, happy kind of drunk, affectionate without being effusive.

  At Eddison’s, we transfer Sterling and our bags into my car, handing our adorably soused agent a bottle of water for the short trip. My job for the night is to give her as much water as she can manage without feeling sick, so she’ll be more or less presentable for work in the morning. She struggles with the cap until Eddison opens it for her, then gives him a bright little chirp in thanks and chugs three-quarters of the bottle in one go.