The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(18)

“My name is Mercedes Ramirez,” I tell the children, and all three flinch. “This is my house.”

“We’re not trespassing,” the middle child retorts defiantly. “The angel lady brought us here!”

“The angel lady?”

The oldest, a girl perhaps twelve or thirteen, still in the early stages of puberty, nods, keeping herself between the steps and the other two. “She killed our parents,” she says bluntly. Blood streaks the sides of their faces, and a little down their arms, not nearly as much as was on Ronnie. She holds her bear—white, with crinkly gold wings and halo, just like Ronnie’s—by one foot, smacking it against her thigh in agitation. The younger ones clutch theirs, seeking comfort she already knows isn’t there. “She woke us up. Said we had to go to their room. She said . . . she said we had to see that we’re safe now.”

“Safe?”

“We were safe at home,” the middle one says. She keeps her free arm around the youngest, a boy who can’t be more than five. “Why did she hurt our parents?”

I glance at the older girl, and there are shadows in her eyes. Maybe the younger one was safe at home, but this one wasn’t. She meets my eyes briefly, then looks away, reaching back for her sister. “They were dead,” she says quietly. “She made us listen for heartbeats to be sure.”

The blood on their cheeks.

“First things first, are any of you hurt?”

The girls shake their heads; the boy buries his in his sister’s shoulder. “The lady had a gun, but she said she wasn’t going to hurt us,” the oldest answers. “Our parents were already dead, so . . . we . . .”

“Did what she said, and kept yourselves safe,” I finish firmly. “What are your names?”

“I’m Sarah.” The oldest girl reaches for her brother’s shoulder. “Sammy. And Ashley.”

“And your last name?”

“Carter. Sammy’s a Wong, like his dad. Like our mom, after they got married.”

“Can you tell me their first names? And your address?”

Sarah gives me the information, and I text it to Sterling. A few seconds later, I get a thumbs-up emoji. A text from Eddison follows. On my way, so is Vic. Okay.

Moving slowly, I sit on the top step. “Help is on the way,” I tell them. “I work for the FBI, and one of my partners is in the car, calling the police. The others are on the way.”

After giving me a long look, Sarah apparently decides that I’m not going to move any closer than I already have, and sits on the very edge of the swing to put an arm around her little brother, sandwiching him between her and her sister. “So what happens now?” asks Sarah. She’s so tightly contained, despite the fear and the pain in her eyes, and it breaks my heart to think what she must have gone through to learn that self-control so young.

“The police are going to have questions for you about what happened, and they’ll take you to the hospital to get you checked over and cleaned up. They’ll make sure there are counselors available to you, when you need to talk. They’ll look for family who can take you in.”

“Our grandparents are out in California. They might not . . .” Sarah glances down at Sammy, still tucked sobbing into Ashley’s side, and doesn’t finish.

I can fill in that blank: they might not be willing to take Sammy. “I promise, the police are going to work really hard to make sure that whatever happens, it’s the best possible thing for you.” Unfortunately, it’s the most I can promise. However much I want to, I can’t promise they’ll all stay together. That’s never in my power.

Detective Holmes arrives on the tail of the ambulance, another car pulling up behind her a minute later. “Ramirez,” she greets me quietly.

I nod in response.

She crouches down beside me, keeping her eye on the kids. “The woman who made the 911 call: Is she drunk?”

“She is; that’s why she has remained in the car the entire time and made the call.” I frown at Holmes’s disapproving look. “It was supposed to be her wedding day. We took her out and got her drunk.”

Holmes blinks at that, and doesn’t seem to have anything to add.

“She’s had zero contact with the children or the environment. She has literally not even opened the car door.”

“All right. Sarah? Ashley? Sammy? My name is Detective Holmes. How are you guys doing?”

The girls eye her, from her shower-damp blonde hair to her heavy-duty work boots, and shift so close together Sammy can barely be seen.

It’s harder this time to sit back and do nothing, to wait for Holmes to make decisions and issue orders to her officers and the paramedics. One of the officers, who has children of his own, takes charge of Ashley and Sammy, gently chivvying them into reluctant smiles as the paramedics look them over and escort them to the ambulance. Sarah watches them until they’re out of sight in the vehicle, and even then seems reluctant to look away.

Holmes studies the girl for a minute or two, then catches my eye and tilts her head in Sarah’s direction. She recognizes that darkness in her eyes as well. It’s a different kind of bruising than Ronnie’s, something that goes beyond painful, something sick and twisting. Getting to my feet, I walk carefully down the porch and hop onto the rail, facing the swing, so I can have proximity without infringing on Sarah’s personal space.