The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(31)

“Are you coming back?”

“Yes, just getting my phones.”

She makes an indistinct sound at that, and when I head back into the bedroom to plug the phones into their chargers, she props herself up on her elbows to scowl. She’s got one leg over the sheet, so it wraps over her other leg and half her ass and leaves the rest of her bare, her hair falling wild over pale skin. In better light, I’d be able to see the freckles that track over almost all of her. I love those freckles, love tracing constellations onto her skin with my mouth. “I think you’re glued to those things,” she mutters, and it takes me a second to realize she’s talking about the phones.

My mind was definitely engaged with the freckles.

“Why are you dressed?”

“Because I went out into the living room.”

“Why did you get dressed to move around your own house?”

“Because I always do?”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Continuing the bedtime ritual, I kneel down to check that the gun safe under the bed is secure. I pull out all three guns—two personal, one Bureau issued—and make sure they’re unloaded. My service weapon is still in hand when there’s a knock on the door. Well, not a knock so much as pounding.

“Hello! Please be there! Help!”

“Get dressed but stay here,” I snap at Siobhan, loading the gun and yanking my phones back off the cords.

“Mercedes!”

“Just do it!” Closing the bedroom door behind me, I head to the front door, with its locks and chain and peephole. There’s a girl out there, face bloodied and panicked, but I can’t see any sign of a car or another person. “My name is Mercedes,” I call through the door, and I can hear the girl take in a shuddering gasp. “I’m going to open the door, okay? But I need you to stay where you are. Can you do that?”

“I can . . . I can do that. I can do that.”

“Okay. You’ll hear the locks disengage, okay? I’m not leaving.” I shove the phones into the band of my leggings and throw the locks one-handed. When the door opens, she lurches forward, then restrains herself, wringing her hands in front of her.

She’s early teens, not much older than Sarah, I think, with glasses sitting crookedly on her nose. There’s blood on her face and both arms, and running down the front of her long tank top, which is the only thing she has on over underwear. She’s got bruises, too, down her arms and across the visible parts of her chest. There’s what looks to be a fresh cigarette burn on her collarbone.

There are no cars besides mine and Siobhan’s in the drive or parked at the curb, no sign of one idling or driving away, no trace of another person around the house. “Sweetheart, how did you get here?”

“A lady,” she says with a gulp.

“Is she still here?”

“N-n-no. We turned around and she told me to get out and walk back here from down the street. I heard her drive away.”

Cógeme. Wait. The camera on the mailbox should have gotten something. Please let it have gotten something. “Okay, sweetheart. That’s okay.” I engage the safety and gingerly tuck the gun into the back of my leggings, and I will never understand people who think that’s a great place to keep a firearm. Reaching out slowly, making sure she can see the movement, I touch her hand. “Why don’t you sit down, mija? What’s your name?”

“Emilia,” she sniffles. “Emilia Anders.”

“Emilia, are you hurt?”

She nods slowly. “My head.”

“Can I look?”

Her nod comes even more reluctantly this time, but it comes. I help her onto the porch swing, where the light is best, and carefully, so gently, follow the blood trail up her face to her temple. Just past her hairline, a gash bleeds sluggishly over a swelling, purpling goose egg. “How old are you, Emilia?” I ask to keep her talking.

“Almost fourteen.”

“Almost? When is your birthday?”

“Not until September,” she admits, her hands curling into fists on her thighs. “But it sounds better than thirteen.”

“I remember those days. I’m going to straighten your glasses, okay? And bring them down your nose a little so I can see your eyes better.”

“Okay.”

The earpieces are still a little crooked after I do my best—probably the screws need adjusting by a professional—but it’s a little better, and clear enough to see her pupils are wide but not blown. Hit hard enough to daze and partially subdue, but probably not hard enough to cause a concussion. “Emilia, what happened, sweetheart?”

She tells a story that’s already achingly familiar, but unlike the others—Ronnie, broken and submissive, and Sarah, protecting her siblings—Emilia fought the woman who woke her up and dragged her to her parents’ room. “She called me ungrateful,” she whispers, watching me text the information to Holmes and Eddison. I angle the phone so she can see the screen. Holmes responds while I’m typing Eddison, telling me she’s on her way with an ambulance, and to keep talking to Emilia rather than call 911.

I can do that.

“Why did she think that?”

“She said . . . she said she was helping me. She was going to make me safe. She told me to stop fighting but I didn’t. She hit me. She killed my parents, and I had to watch.” Her breaths are coming faster, short and choppy, her shoulders quivering. I scoot to one side and press gently against her back to have her bend forward.