“Blood?”
“No.”
“I’ll grab Watts and Kearney and come down.” I really want to throw this fucking phone against the wall; it does not bring good things. Ending the call, I take a deep breath and consider my options. “I have to head to Manassas,” I tell my partners. “Girl was found sleeping outside the hospital.”
“Sleeping? Like she was drugged.”
“I don’t know. I’ll tell Vic.”
“What about your visitor?” Sterling asks.
“Also Vic.” Before I can be tempted into explaining, which is not something I have time for even if I did have the inclination (I don’t), I grab my purse and leave the conference room, hooking my elbow through Cass’s and walking her backward. “We’re off to Manassas. I have to give something to Vic to handle; grab Watts?”
“Why are we—but it’s midmorning, how is there just now a victim? Someone would see something.”
“I’ll tell you both in the car.” I twist her around to point her in the right direction and give her a swat on her ass to keep her moving.
And because we’ve been friends for ten years, she just shoots me the bird and flounces down the stairs to find Watts.
Vic is in his office. He gives me a distracted good morning, head down as he makes notes on a file, but the sound of the lock turning has his full attention on me. “Mercedes? What’s wrong?”
“Two things.” I tell him the very little I have regarding the newest child, and he nods gravely.
“What’s the second thing?” he asks when I struggle to continue.
Deep breath, Mercedes. “My mother is downstairs.”
That has him putting down his pen and leaning back in the well-padded chair. “Your mother.”
“Probably. I guess it could be one of the cousins. It’s a popular name in the family. But . . . yeah, it’s probably my mother.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“She tracked down my foster home when I was thirteen. That’s when they transferred me out of their system to another city.” Nineteen years.
“And you have an idea about why she’s here.”
“My father was recently diagnosed with cancer,” I say and, at his raised eyebrow, add, “Pancreatic.”
“I’ll go speak with her. Do you want me to convince her to leave?”
My gut screams, Yes, but that part of me that will always, always feel guilty despite knowing my choices were mine and were right for me says, Wait.
And Vic reads that hesitation for what it is and comes around his desk to give me a long hug. “I’ll see if she’s got a hotel. If not, I’ll get her set up in one.”
“Not in Manassas, please.”
“Not in Manassas. I promise.”
I lean my head against his chest, feeling the ridges of the surgical scar even through his dress shirt and undershirt. That bullet changed his life, but it changed our lives too. Such a little thing to have so much weight. As he pulls back, he smooths the stray wisps of my hair that always fight the clips and ponytails, his hand warm on my scalp as he presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Go check on that little girl,” he murmurs. “I’ll get your mother settled somewhere, for when you’re ready.”
In twenty-seven years, I have never been ready for that conversation. I attempted it a few times, those first few years, but she always shut it down. And now . . .
I nod, blinking away tears that I will swear to my dying day are just from exhaustion and stress, and unlock his door. Cass and Watts are waiting at the elevator. They both look blankly at Vic, who just gives them a bland smile and no explanation.
In the lobby, I can see her immediately, sitting stiffly in a chair near the desk, a rosary wrapped around her palm so the crucifix rests on the base of her thumb. I’ve always remembered her as she was when I was a child; somehow I’ve never thought of her as being old. Of course she is, she’s almost seventy. But as much as she’s changed, it’s still immediately her, and my heart thumps painfully.
Vic steps to my side, between me and my mother, and as we draw closer, he pushes me along with Cass and Watts, breaking off to stand in front of her. As the three of us walk away, I can hear him address her. “Mrs. Ramirez, my name is Victor Hanoverian. I’m the unit chief for your daughter’s team.”
Cass gives me an anxious look.
“I’m not discussing it,” I whisper. “By the time we get to Manassas, I will be completely focused on Ava.”
Watts simply nods. “We’re all here for reasons, Ramirez. Just tell me if you need to step away.”
That is not something I have ever known how to tell.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was scared of her father.
It was only natural; he’d hurt her so badly for so long. But even now, after so many years, he was still her deepest wound, her most visceral nightmare.
She hadn’t seen him since the trial, the bits of it for which her presence had been required. She’d sat trembling in the row behind the prosecutor, her advocate by her side, or up in the witness stand, watching her daddy seethe. He’d been so angry. She’d always known to be afraid when he was that angry. When the advocate led her out of the courtroom for the last time, she looked over her shoulder and saw Daddy standing at his table, in one of the nicest suits he wore for work, and he was glaring at her, like it was all her fault.
He hated her, she thought, but it wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault.
Mostly she believed that.
Her daddy was in prison, where he belonged, and whatever indelible scars he’d left on her, he could never cause her fresh wounds. She was safe. She was healing. She was okay. It had taken her a long time to get there, but the angel had promised that she was going to be okay, and eventually she was. She was okay.
Then she got a letter from her father.
She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, but it had both her names in the center, and that bolt of fear . . . It had been years since she’d been that suddenly afraid. Then she saw the name in the upper left corner, with the prisoner number and the name of the facility.
It took her four days just to open the envelope.
Another three to actually read the letter.
It started, My Beautiful Angel.
He wanted to apologize in person. There was so much he needed to tell her. Would she come see him?
She didn’t want to.
She absolutely didn’t want to, and yet . . . and yet . . .
She didn’t think either of them were surprised when she finally showed up. He’d always had too much power over her.
He still looked like Daddy. Older, greyer . . . more muscled. He worked out with the boys in the yard, he told her, had him in the best shape of his life. She was so pretty, he told her, but he missed her red hair. She’d looked so perfect with the red hair. He had a look in his eye, one that her tight muscles and hunched shoulders remembered before her mind did.
He was remarried, he told her, to a woman who wanted to save him.
They were expecting a baby, he told her, coming in August, and his lawyer thought there was a chance, given how crowded the prison was, that it might make him seem sympathetic enough to release. He had years—decades—of sentence left, but his lawyer thought he could be out in a few years with any luck.
It was a girl, he told her, grinning. We’re naming it after you, he told her, my own baby girl again, just like you never left. I do love my baby girl, he told her, and his laughter clawed in her bones as she ran away.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was scared of her father.
If he got out of prison, her little sister would be scared of him too.
24
Ava Levine is a twelve-year-old girl who practically glows with health, giving us all confused smiles as she sits on the hospital bed with a pair of familiar teddy bears in her lap. Her brown hair is well tended, she’s a good weight for her age and height, and she doesn’t have a si
ngle visible bruise.
But when she follows the doctor’s instruction and lies back on the bed, her oversize sleep shirt drapes around the swell of what is either a baby bump or a really bad liver. I don’t think any of us actually need the doctor to confirm it’s the former.
“Shouldn’t my parents be here?” she asks when the doctor has finished her exam and helped her sit up.
Holmes checks her phone. She was definitely called straight from bed, her hair shoved back haphazardly in a clip that doesn’t quite manage to hit contained. She’s in worn jeans and a shirt so faded it’s impossible to tell what the lettering used to read, her feet shoved into two different kinds of sandal. “Detective Mignone is almost to your house, sweetheart.”
What the shit?
Nancy, sitting in a chair by the bed, looks up at us anxiously.
It’s the same bear. It is absolutely, definitely the same bear, and this is very clearly a pregnant twelve-year-old. So why is the rest of it so bizarre?
“Ava,” Watts says calmly, standing at the foot of the bed. “Did you know you’re pregnant?”
“Well, yeah,” the girl answers, still looking politely baffled.
That’s not the answer Watts was expecting, but she’s too good to show it. “Do you know who the father is, Ava?”
“My daddy.”
El mundo está en guerra. Por lo que solo hay que dejar que se queme.
“I’ve been asking for a little sister for years,” she continues, oblivious to the carefully contained reactions of the rest of us. “Mom said she got hurt when I was born, and can’t have any more kids in her belly, so I’m doing it.” Her brilliant smile falters a bit when we don’t say anything. “What’s wrong?”
“Your mom knew?”
“It was her idea, but it made Daddy really happy. He called us his smart girls. What’s wrong?” she asks again, starting to look a little worried.
Holmes tilts her phone toward me, the screen bright with a new message from Mignone. Parents are dead. Negative spaces indicate there was only the killer. Tylenol PM packets in the girl’s room.
“Ava, do you ever take anything to help you sleep?”
She nods slowly. “Growing a baby is tiring. Mom says I have to get lots of sleep so my sister and I will both be healthy. She looked it up and everything.”
So if a pregnant child took an adult dose of a sleep aid, the killer probably couldn’t wake her up enough to register what was happening.
“Why is everyone so . . .”
“Ava, what your parents did . . . it’s illegal, sweetheart, and it’s not healthy.”
“No, Mom has been getting me all my vitamins and everything. I’m fine.”
Watts shares a look with Nancy, who leans forward in her chair. “No matter what you’re taking or how you’re eating or sleeping, Ava, your body isn’t ready for everything that being pregnant or delivering a baby requires. As you get further along, you’re going to be in a lot of danger. And when Agent Watts said it was illegal . . . legally you can’t consent to anything like that until you’re older. For a parent to do it—”
“No,” Ava retorts, clutching the bears tightly. “My parents love me and we’re all really happy. We’re not doing anything wrong.”
Holmes looks exhausted. She’s undoubtedly been juggling other cases with this one, which means she probably hasn’t had a solid night’s rest in weeks.
I cross the room to stand between Watts and Nancy. “Ava, do you remember how you got to the hospital?”
She frowns at that, her fingers running anxiously along the crinkling gold halo of one of the bears. It’s strikingly similar to praying a rosary, and it’s everything I can do not to close my eyes against the sight, the memory of a string of metal and glass around my mother’s palm. “Not really,” she says eventually. “I fall asleep to the TV sometimes. My dad carries me to bed.”
“You were brought here by a stranger, Ava, someone who knew that your parents got you pregnant and was really angry about it. She brought you here so you’d be safe until you were found, but . . . Ava, I’m really sorry, but she killed your parents.”
There is no good way to tell a child that. I don’t know if there’s a good way to tell anyone that, if it comes to it, but certainly not a child.
She blinks, and stares at me blankly. “What?”
“Detective Mignone went out to your house to find your parents,” I remind her gently. “He found your parents dead. Someone had killed them. And because she brought you here, because we recognize the bears she gave you, we know it’s the same person who’s killed other kids’ parents recently.”
“No.” Her head shakes, increasingly frantic. “No, you’re lying. You’re lying!”
Nancy and the nurse both rush in to calm her as she breaks into hysterics. No tears yet—the shock is too fresh—but her screams are piercing and pained and the heart monitor is shrieking right along with her.
It’s one thing, common and even expected, for kids to deny they’ve been hurt. But this? To genuinely not even realize? Sympathy stirs for her pain, but I can’t bring myself to be sorry her parents are dead.
Her mother’s idea? Christ, this poor girl.
The shock triggers a panic attack, and by the time she’s finally calmer, she’s in an exhausted stupor with the oxygen mask covering the lower half of her face. The nurse strokes Ava’s hair, a physical comfort that has the girl drifting off to sleep, the teddy bears clutched to her chest. “I don’t think you’re going to get anything out of her for a while,” the woman says quietly.
Nancy and Cass stay in the room, pulling chairs away from the bed to give some space. The rest of us head into the hallway.
Holmes glances back through the small window in the door, then at me. “Why was she given two bears?”
“One for the baby.”
She chokes on that a little.
Watts blows out a frustrated breath that’s almost a raspberry. “She didn’t wake up enough to be told your name and she hasn’t read the note that was pinned to her; if you want to head back to the office, you probably can, Ramirez.”
“Do you think there’ll need to be a separate warrant for the list of who accessed Ava’s file?”
“No; ongoing cases usually garner a little bit of wiggle room. At least for this sort of information. I’m going to send the Smiths to CPS to talk to the clerks. They may be bringing Gloria Hess back with them to question. Ramirez . . .”
“I know. I can’t be there if you talk to her.”
Because talking to the kids is one thing, if it brings them comfort, and if it keeps them calm to answer questions. Because they’re given my name. Looking through my case files is research, not investigation. I am an asset to the investigation, but not an element of the investigation itself. Technicalities, as stupid as they can be, protect us. But if suspects are brought into a station or office in an official capacity, I can’t participate or even observe.
God damn it.
And I don’t actually have a way to get back to Quantico. We came in Watts’s car.
I should probably check on the other kids who are still here, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Maybe this is stepping away, acknowledging that I don’t have the strength to do this today.
I head out of the hospital, trying to decide if I remember where my car is. I can call a taxi if it’s at Eddison’s or Sterling’s. But there’s also the possibility that it’s in the garage at Quantico, and that’s a bit more than I want to pay for a ride.
My phone rings in my hand, and I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know, I don’t—why is Jenny Hanoverian calling me? “Jenny?”
“Mercedes,” she says warmly. “My husband tells me you might need a ride back to Quantico. The girls are showing Marlene Magic Mike, so I’m free as a bird.”
Watts, you clever fiend.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you—”
“I once had to drive to Atlanta because Holly forgot her running shoes for a
track meet; beat that, and we’ll talk about being inconvenienced.”
Holly is her daughter, though, and I am suddenly very incapable of continuing with any kind of argument, because that is a weird and wonderful and terrifying thought.
She pulls up in her minivan, the front bumper still sporting the blue paint from when one of Brittany’s driving lessons ended in a destroyed toy box, and she takes a long look at my face as I buckle in. And then she spends the drive back chatting about her vegetable garden and the war she’s waging with the invading rabbits. It’s a gift, and there’s something about it . . .
It’s Siobhan, I realize. When Siobhan and I were together, she’d burble on about things because she didn’t want to know about my day or my cases. But Jenny is talking because I can’t, and it’s strange how something so similar can be so different.
We stop to pick up a late lunch for everyone, bacon grilled-cheese sandwiches and several different kinds of soup, and a quick glance around the office lobby is enough to reassure me that my mother isn’t there. Upstairs, Vic gives me a card with an address and a room number on it, a hotel here in Quantico, but doesn’t say a word.
I should probably figure out where my car is.
Jenny leaves after lunch, waving off my gratitude. She just kisses us all on the cheek, goes for Eddison’s other cheek after he blushes the first time, and walks off laughing.
“If she ever leaves you,” I tell Vic solemnly, “I’m marrying her.”
He chuckles and leaves us to our research. After all, all three of us have proposed to his mother at various times.
We spend the afternoon digging through my cases, occasionally sending names to Cass to have her analysts do more in-depth research in systems Sterling can’t access. Ava, she reports, is with an obstetrician to have an ultrasound. Her mother bought her vitamins, but they weren’t specifically prenatal, and she hadn’t had any appointments. Of course she hadn’t—every clinic in the country would have been required to report it.
“CPS keeps physical and digital files,” Sterling says suddenly.
Given that none of us have said anything in half an hour, the abrupt declaration makes me and Eddison blink stupidly. “Right,” I say after a minute. “We’ve got copies of several of the physical files.”
The Summer Children Page 21