The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(42)

One night, while she stared at that angel pin, there was a knock on the door upstairs. You could always hear everything in that house; it had no secrets. All the men froze. There was never a knock at night. Everyone was already there. There was a voice calling something, loud but indistinct over the music. The little girl kept her eyes on the angel.

But the noise continued, and before Daddy and his friends got to their feet, the basement door was kicked in with a blaze of light, forging halos behind the people who stood there. The man with the pin pulled away from her, and in the panic and babble, one of Daddy’s friends lifted a gun.

The little girl didn’t pay much attention to the gun; that was never the thing to hurt her.

Instead, she watched one of the new people approach her, dark curls limned in light. The woman crouched over her, covering the little girl’s body as much as she could, but her gun stayed in her hands and trained on Daddy’s friend until he dropped his gun to the carpet and put his hands in the air.

Then the woman grabbed a blanket and wrapped the little girl in it, hugging her close but oh so gently. Her eyes were kind and sad, and she stroked the girl’s hair and whispered that she was going to be okay, she was going to be okay. She was safe now. She gave the girl a teddy bear to hug and cry into, and stayed with her even as others crowded into the basement to take away Daddy and all his friends. Daddy was furious, yelling terrible things, but the woman just hugged the girl, and covered her ears so she didn’t have to hear what her daddy said. The lady stayed with her in the ambulance, and in the hospital, and told her she was going to be okay.

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

Then she met one, and she wasn’t afraid anymore.



15

Late the next morning, when the caffeine from the many coffee runs has stripped a hole in my gut, I take the elevator down to the cafeteria to pick up some bagels or whatever else strikes my fancy. On the way back up, another agent skips into the otherwise empty car just before the doors close.

“Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Hello to you, too, Cass.”

Cassondra Kearney is on Simpkins’s team, but she’s also a friend. We came up through the academy together and now that I think on it, she’s probably the biggest reason the survival guide has, well . . . survived. She’s wearing her glasses, which means she’s at least halfway to exhausted. “Lunch?”

I look down at the bundle of plastic-wrapped sandwiches in my arms, then at the slightly manic glint in her eye. That glint never spells good things for me. “Let me give these to Eddison and Sterling, and I’ll grab my bag.”

“Great. I’ll wait for you here.”

“In the elevator?”

She glances at the opening doors, then positions herself in the corner with the control panel, where she can’t be seen from the hall. Cass attempting subterfuge is invariably frightening. As bad as she is at it, though, she always has a good reason for it, so rather than argue, I’ll go along with it.

Eddison isn’t at his desk, but Sterling is at hers, reading through a consult request I’m not allowed to touch. I pyramid the sandwiches on the corner of her desk. “Tell him I’m off to lunch with a friend from the academy?”

“He’ll know who it is?”

“Probably.” Most of my friends from those days aren’t based in Quantico, so it limits the pool of possibilities. The fact that I didn’t mention the name should be the real tip-off. “I’ll be back.”

“Roger that.”

When Cass said she’d wait there, she really meant right there. She’s got a foot stuck in the track to keep the doors from closing. Anderson tries to get past her into the elevator, and she actually snarls at him. I wait just inside the bullpen until he gives up and uses the stairs, then join Cass.

We don’t talk on the way down, or on our way to the garage. “Are we avoiding being seen together?” I mutter.

“Please.”

“Then I’m on level two; pick me up on the way down.”

She nods, not looking at me. Her keys bounce against her thigh. She jogs off to the garage elevator, and I walk up the ramp to my car on the second level. I don’t think anyone’s watching, but just in case—and because it will probably make her feel better, as worked up as she is—I rummage through my trunk like I’m looking for something. When I hear her car pull up, I close the trunk, lock the car, and slide into her passenger seat.

“Now are you going to explain?”

“We’re going to make a quick stop before we eat,” she says.

“Where?”

“Manassas CPS.”

“Oh shit, Cass.” I close my eyes and let my head thunk back against the headrest. “You wouldn’t be pulling this cloak-and-dagger fuckery if you hadn’t explicitly been told not to involve me.”

Her pained silence is answer enough.

“Cass, ?Qué mierda?”

“Simpkins says we’re not allowed to update your team at all.” The farther we get from the Bureau building, the more she relaxes into her seat. “It’s not like we took a case over from you; this is your life.”

“Cass.”

“They were able to finish the exam on Mason Jeffers,” she says all in a rush. “There were signs of intermittent penetrative abuse, but here’s the kicker: he’s got herpes.”