The Summer Children (The Collector Series Book 3)

by Dot Hutchison

  “I guess that’s that.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Olvídate de las hermanastras, la próxima vez encontraremos a la Cenicienta,” he says, and there are so many things wrong with that I can’t even try to list them out.

  We’re still standing there, just looking at the box, when Vic walks up. He identifies it right away and grimaces in sympathy. “I’m about to make your morning worse,” he admits. “Agent Dern needs to see you. Then Simpkins’s team needs to talk to you.”

  “They’re paired with Holmes and Manassas PD?”

  “Yes. They have all of Holmes’s notes, but—”

  “But they want to conduct their own interviews where possible,” I finish for him, and he nods. Grabbing the box, I drop it to the floor and kick it under the desk, out of sight and hopefully, at least for a little while, out of mind. “Is Simpkins going to be okay for this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last time Eddison and I worked with her, she was pissy as hell, and Cass said something happened on their case last week in Idaho.”

  “I don’t know about Idaho, but she’s a good agent, good enough not to let her disapproval of how I ran the team interfere with the case.”

  Eddison snorts, but doesn’t offer further comment. Simpkins has never tried to pretend she approves of Vic’s style, but the last time we were loaned to her, she rode our asses like we were baby agents who’d slept through the academy. It was distinctly unpleasant, and uncalled for.

  Vic walks me to Internal Affairs and Agent Dern’s office, which isn’t at all surprising, and then follows me inside, which kind of is. He just shrugs when I give him a sideways glance. “Now what kind of friend would I be if I left you to face the Dragonmother alone?”

  Agent Dern looks up from her computer with a wry smile. “I thought it was generally agreed not to use that name to my face. Agent Ramirez, please, have a seat.”

  The Dragonmother of Internal Affairs, Agent Samantha Dern has been in the Bureau for almost fifty years. Her face is creased and lined, and her light makeup makes no effort to hide it, just as the silver-white hair cropped in a flattering, kind of fluffy bob has no dye to mask it. A pair of plastic-framed reading glasses, the frames almost the same rose color of her silk blouse, perch on her nose, connected to a thin chain draped around her neck. She looks soft and kindly, like someone’s favorite grandmother, but she’s been known to make grown men cry in under ten minutes.

  “Agent Ramirez, where would you like to begin? With Emilia Anders, or with Agent Ryan’s call to HR?”

  “What, already?” I blurt, and clap a hand over my mouth. Hopefully the makeup covers just how badly my face is burning at the moment.

  Agent Dern pulls off her reading glasses, slowly spinning one of the earpieces between her fingers. “Well,” she says eventually, her face caught somewhere between sympathy and amusement. “At least that’s not how you found out things were over, I suppose.”

  “Sorry. I was just . . . surprised, I guess. It took me four months to convince her we really had to tell HR we were dating, and even after we did, she was jumpy about letting colleagues find out about us.”

  “Understanding that in this instance, you have every right to tell me to butt the hell out: Are you doing all right?”

  “I am, actually.” I smile at her, feeling the week’s exhaustion tugging at the muscles. “It sucks, but I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

  “Secret admirers can be difficult to deal with, and they’re rarely as charming as movies make them out to be.”

  “Emilia is the first kid the killer has injured. Now that she’s done it, though, I worry about whether or not she’ll think it’s easier to subdue the kids with violence first.”

  “Agent Simpkins will want to hear that concern; we’ve got some different details to go over at the moment. Have you worked with Dru Simpkins before?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Eddison and I were last assigned to her on the child-swapping-ring case ten months ago.”

  “That’s right. That’s when this idiot was in the hospital.”

  “I was doing my job, Sam,” Vic says mildly.

  Agent Dern simply shrugs. “You stepped in front of a bullet meant for someone who raped and murdered eight children.”

  “And whether or not he merits execution is for the court to decide, not the grieving father of a victim. We don’t get to uphold just the laws we like.”

  It has the sound of a conversation that’s happened many times, the details changing and the tone remaining the same. Agent Dern waves off the distinction with a careless hand. “Back to the first point: Agent Ryan. You don’t work in the same department, so there won’t be any need to shuffle things around, but we would ask that you be . . . discreet . . . when people ask what happened.”

  “I’m not interested in dragging her through the mud, ma’am,” I say respectfully. “Things didn’t work out. That’s sad, but it’s not anything like a reason to sully her name through the Bureau.”

  “I appreciate that, and I’d expect no less from one of Vic’s protégées, but HR asked me to mention it. Now for the part you’re not going to like.”

  Vic shifts uneasily in his chair.

  “We have to take you off active duty,” says Agent Dern, straightforward in a way I’ll probably be grateful for later.

  “Sam!”

  “It’s not my call, Vic, not really.” She regards me frankly, not making apology or excuses. “You know how lawyers can be. Any of the cases currently in the works—any case you touch while this is happening—could blow up at court. It’s stupid, I know. If anything, you’re being targeted by the killer because you excel at your job, not for any nefarious purpose, but the Bureau can’t afford any perception that a clever lawyer could exploit to imply complicity.”

  “So I’m . . .” I shake my head, trying to process this. “So I’m suspended?”

  “No. But it does mean you need to be hands off on cases. Your team has been on desk rotation anyway, and I suspect Agents Eddison and Sterling will revolt if anyone tries to send them off without you, so you’ll all be kept to Quantico until this is resolved. They’ll be able to work on consults.”

  “But I can’t even do that.”

  “No. You’re going to have two distinct assignments, Agent Ramirez.” She points to the corner of her desk nearest me, where three enormous binders stuffed with paper rest. “First assignment: your section chief feels, and I agree, that there needs to be training in place for new agents when they’re assigned to Crimes Against Children. Something specific to your division, intended to help agents adjust to one of the most difficult sections in the Bureau. Suggestions for content have been solicited from section and unit chiefs, Bureau psychologists, and agents. You might remember the questionnaire that went out a few months ago.”

  I remember Sterling walking up behind Eddison and startling him so badly he spilled his coffee all over our questionnaires. I don’t remember them being replaced and turned in.

  “We want you to write it.”

  “Me?”

  “You’ve been in the CAC division for ten years,” she reminds me. “And then there’s this.” She holds up a much smaller binder with Sharpie calligraphy across the front: A NAT’s Guide to Life.

  “Oh, Mother of God.” I can feel the blush burning down my neck and ears.

  Vic laughs and reaches out to nudge my shoulder. “What, didn’t know it was still floating around?”

  “Why would anyone still have that after ten years?”

  “Because they reproduce it and pass it around to all the new agent trainees in their first week,” Agent Dern informs me dryly. “It’s informative, personable, and humorous, and it helps settle the NATs wonderfully. Realistically, Agent Ramirez, there is very little the Bureau will ever be able to do to prevent the burnout that happens so quickly in CAC. What we can do, however, is increase our efforts to make sure those who start working there are better prepared for what they’ll face.
And if that means, after reading such a guide, that they don’t feel themselves suited for the division, we can transfer them out early.”

  “I wrote that very drunk,” I inform her bluntly. “A good third of us spent the weekend before graduation getting roaring drunk together, and that was the result. That entire thing was born in truly terrible tequila.”

  “Written drunk, but edited sober,” she points out. “And ten years of trainee agents have been using it as their bible. This isn’t just a throwaway assignment; we’ve had you in mind from the beginning. We weren’t planning on asking you until later in the year, but there’s no reason not to go ahead and ask it now.”

  “You said there were two assignments.”

  “Go back through all the cases you’ve worked where you’ve had direct contact with the children. Not the consults, not cases where you were primarily at the precinct or working with adults. Look through your notes, anything you wrote about the children. Not just the victims. Any child. Somewhere in there may be the key to finding this murderer. This is personal for her; you are personal. If we’re very lucky, somewhere in the past ten years, one of your kids is going to ring a bell. Don’t look at the case details, don’t look at the things that seem similar at a stretch. Look at the children, Agent Ramirez. That’s your second assignment.”

  “That’s . . . actually already in progress, ma’am.”

  Vic gives me a startled look that quickly shifts to a proud smile. I am thirty-two years old but damned if I don’t get all warm and fuzzy every time he shows he’s proud of me.

  “Agent Alceste is getting the files together on a drive so I can see everyone’s notes, not just mine. I should receive them soon.”

  “You braved Alceste?” he asks, the smile turning impish.

  “I’ve always wondered why no one refers to her as the Dragonmother of the Archives,” Agent Dern agrees.

  Because dragons sometimes interact enough for a game of riddles and she is the least motherly human I’ve ever met, but I’m not about to say that out loud. Instead, I look at the beginnings of my other assignment, all the notes and suggestions from agents and leadership on what should be included in a survival guide. Training manual. The binders on the corner of the desk are a mess. Tabs and Post-its stick out in haphazard places, and there are pages that are just shoved in, either because there wasn’t any more room in the rings or because people were just being lazy. Even odds, really. It’s a hell of a lot of work, and I don’t know that it’ll do even half of what the bosses are hoping. No matter how prepared you are intellectually, working in CAC is an anvil chorus; the hammers always hit hard.

  “Eddison is going to chafe at being chained to his desk for even longer,” I observe eventually.

  “Probably,” agrees Vic. “But even if we gave him the option of fieldwork, he isn’t going to leave you behind.”

  “Sterling is a blue-eyed ball of mischief. If there aren’t enough consults and she gets bored . . .”

  “Personally, I’m hoping she’ll provoke Agent Eddison into finally trying to bell her,” Agent Dern replies placidly. “It should be quite entertaining to watch.”

  “You know,” I say before I can think better of it, “for someone called the Dragonmother, there’s been remarkably little flaming.”

  She smiles deeply, soft lines creasing around her eyes and mouth. “I joined the Bureau at a time when females were largely considered second-class agents,” she explains. “Then, of course, I was put into Internal Affairs, which meant I was supposed to be the nagging, critical, never-lets-you-have-any-fun wife. I was the enemy. It was necessary to become a bit of a dragon, simply to ensure that no one looked at me and assumed they could get away with something. It became something of a habit, even after the reputation meant I didn’t have to roar as much. Good agents, Ramirez, never have to fear Internal Affairs. We’re here to maintain accountability and a degree of transparency, yes, but we’re also here to support our agents. You’re not here because you’ve done something wrong. I don’t need to bite or roar or flame or any such thing.”

  It makes sense, now, that she and Vic are old friends. I don’t think they came through the academy together—she’s probably got a decade on him, at least—but they likely came through some of the same people. It’s the way they believe in people, the way they work toward not just what the Bureau is, but what it should be, and insist on holding others to a higher standard, not to see us fail but to see us improve and achieve.

  “Do you accept the assignments, Agent Ramirez?” she asks gently.

  Aware of Vic’s eyes on me, I nod. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Excellent. I’ll have someone deliver the binders to your desk along with an official memo about what’s desired. Vic, you’ll take her on to Simpkins?”

  “Of course.” He stands and offers me a hand up, and it’s a little silly to make someone else trek all the way over when I can just carry the binders myself, but he slaps my hand away. “Along with a memo, Mercedes. It’s not in there yet.”

  A memo can be emailed.

  “Stop that,” he chides, and it takes a second to figure out if I said that bit out loud or if ten years have taught him to read my face entirely too well. From Agent Dern’s cocked eyebrow, I’m going to guess the latter.

  I murmur a goodbye to Agent Dern, get a highly amused farewell in turn, and follow Vic out the door.

  “Doing okay?” he asks quietly.

  “I get it,” I sigh. “I don’t like it, but I get it, even if I think the handbook is a bad idea. I just . . .”

  He drapes an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into a sideways hug, then keeps it there as we walk. It draws a few looks from people as we pass. He ignores them. “A lot has landed on your doorstep, literally, and there’s no one way to feel about it. This woman has invaded your home. I know you, Mercedes. I know what that means to you.”

  I was assigned to Vic and Eddison straight out of the academy, but Vic has known me a lot longer. Sometimes, inexplicably, I forget that. And then, like now, I remember.

  “How do I sleep there, knowing another child might be walking up the steps?” I whisper. “How do I stay anywhere else, knowing another child might have to sit there in blood and fear, and wait?”

  “I don’t have an answer for you.”

  “I’d call bullshit if you did.”

  He smiles and squeezes my shoulder, using the motion to give me a small shove into the open elevator. “You’re going to get through this, Mercedes, and we’re going to be right beside you to make sure of that.”

  “What happens . . .”

  Giving me a curious look, he waits for the doors to close, for that sinking feeling that says the car is in motion, then hits the emergency stop. “What happens when?”

  I pace the small space from wall to wall, gathering the worries into words I hope make sense. “What happens when she checks on the kids?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re operating under the theory that she’s going after these parents because they’re hurting the kids. She brings the kids to me to keep them safe.”

  “Right . . .”

  “So what happens when she checks on Sarah, Ashley, and Sammy and finds out that they’re having trouble finding a home that will take all three of them? Ronnie’s doing fairly well at his grandmother’s, but Emilia’s only family seems to be either in prison or living out of the country. What kind of home is she going to get put in? My first few foster homes . . . not all of them were terrible, but some of them were. What happens to Emilia if she’s put in a bad home? And at what point does this killer decide that she isn’t bringing me kids to protect just for me to put them back into a flawed system?”

  “You think she could come after you.”

  “I think we have to acknowledge it as a possibility. We’re not going to understand her framework or compulsions until we find her, not really. So what happens when she gets more pissed at the system than at the parents?”

&n
bsp; “She hasn’t given any indication of that,” he says after a moment. “If it was the system as a whole she was worried about, wouldn’t we see foster parents in the mix?”

  “We might yet. There’s only been three. Realistically, she’s just getting started.”

  “But she didn’t start with them. What do you think the difference is?”

  He’s not asking Agent Ramirez; he’s asking Mercedes.

  “Fosters are strangers; you never know what you’re going to get. Your parents are the two people in the whole world who aren’t supposed to hurt you. The wounds are deeper, in a way.”

  He thinks his way through that, his weathered face mobile with the emotions that latch onto shreds of ideas or theories. Eventually he leans against the side wall and opens his arms, and I accept the hug gratefully, conscious of the still-tender scar over his heart. “I don’t know how to rescue you from this,” he admits softly.

  I shake my head. “We do our jobs. We trust Holmes and Simpkins to do theirs. I’m not sure there is a rescue.”

  We stand like that until someone from the next floor yells to let the fucking elevator move already, and he leans over to flick the car back into motion. Because he’s Vic, and he’s sometimes a little petty, he overrides the stop to skip the next floor.

  It makes me smile, even if it probably shouldn’t.

  14

  Vic insists on all of us joining the family for dinner, and I both get it and am grateful for it, and with all three of his daughters home for the evening for once, the house is full of noise and laughter. No one mentions the case, or how no one can decide if I should go home or not. Holly and Brittany, the older two girls, are full of stories from college, their classes and campus life and competitions. Both are on athletics scholarships, Holly for cross-country and Brittany for swimming. Janey is still in high school, but she regales us with tales from rehearsals for her summer shows, and Vic is so proud of all three of them he can hardly see straight.