The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(62)

It’s a little scary that Holmes and I have now spent enough time with each other for her to interpret my expressions that well. I lean against the foot of the bed, curling my hands around the plastic frame so he can see them. “Noah? Can you tell us what happened?”

“I was sleeping.” He shakes his head, his eyes going momentarily out of focus. “Mom sent me to bed early because it’s an early morning. We’re driving to Williamsburg tomorrow, to Busch Gardens. For my birthday.”

?Por amor de Dios, tenga compasión!

“What woke you up?” Holmes asks. She must have already questioned him a bit, before she called and on the way over, but you’d never know it from her face or body language.

“I thought it was a nightmare. One of those creepy mannequins. A hand shook my shoulder, I opened my eyes, and there it was. The hand covered my mouth when I tried to scream.” He mumbles the last bit, a blush creeping up his neck, and there’s something perversely reassuring about the self-conscious pride of preteen boys. “She said I had to be quiet.”

“She?”

“Sounded like a she. I mean, I guess it didn’t have to be, like a drag queen or something, maybe, but um . . .” He blushes a scalding pink. “I wasn’t walking too straight. She put an arm around me, like to steer me? And she was, uh, soft. You know? Like . . .” Blushing even more fiercely, he cups a hand against his chest and squeezes.

One of the nurses ducks his head to his shoulder to hide his smile.

The story is heart-achingly familiar. She took him to his mother’s room and forced him to stand beside the bed while she stabbed his mother to death. He fought her, but she pistol-whipped the back of his skull hard enough to make him groggy, and she finished the job, took him to the van—or an SUV, he isn’t sure, but it was bigger than his mom’s sedan—gave him the bear, and dropped him off one street over from the police station.

After, of course, giving him my name.

“She kept saying she was saving me,” he says, his voice small and pained. “Saving me from what, though? She said my mom had to pay. That she couldn’t keep doing this to me. Doing what?”

Holmes and I trade a look, and she nods for me to take it. “Noah, this person has been going after parents who hurt or endanger their children.”

“My mom never hurt me!” he retorts, straightening so fast he visibly fights off a bout of nausea. “She never hurt me.”

“Noah—”

“No. We watch those crime shows, I know a lot of kids say that even though they’re being abused, but I’m not!”

“When you were at a friend’s house a couple of weeks ago, someone called Child Protective Services to lodge a concern,” Holmes tells him. “They said you were badly bruised and limping when you arrived.”

“My dad was an Olympic gymnast.” His eyes are bright but determined, so rather than derail what seems to be a non sequitur, we stay silent. “He won bronze medals for the Netherlands. When he and Mom got married, they moved here and he started training gymnasts. He died when I was little. All I’ve ever wanted is to go to the Olympics like my dad, but our gym closed two years ago. I wasn’t good enough yet to get into one of the competitive gyms. Last year, I was on the wait list. No spots opened up. They said if I kept practicing, I could audition again next month.”

“You practice at home.”

“Mom converted the basement for me. We’re not rich, though. That’s why I was wait-listed, because I have to have a scholarship slot. Our mats are old, and the padding isn’t great, so I get bruised. I twisted my ankle trying a new beam dismount. And . . .” He blushes again. “I’ve been trying to get it down for the audition, so I haven’t let it heal. You have to believe me, my mom has never hurt me. All my friends know how hard I practice.”

“Noah, do you know if someone from CPS came to your home?”

“Yes, a lady named Martha. We showed her the gym in the basement, and she watched a couple of my practice routines and some of the videos. She said she believed us, and she’d get it taken care of.” He blinks rapidly, trying to keep back tears. “Is that why this lady killed my mom? Because she didn’t believe us?”

“Noah . . .” Moving around the end of the bed, I sit near enough to offer a hand. He takes it immediately, squeezing punishingly hard. I don’t tell him to ease up. “This person, whoever’s doing this . . . she’s so caught up in the need to do it that she’s rushing, and she isn’t getting all the information. I know that can’t be easy to hear, and I’m sorry. I am so sorry for what happened to you and your mom.”

“Why you?”

For the first time, I finally feel like I have an answer that’s almost good enough. “Because whoever she is, she knows I care. She feels like other people aren’t paying enough attention to kids being hurt and my whole job is to find and arrest people who hurt kids. She gave you my name because she knew I would drop everything to be here for you.”

The tears trickle down his face, smearing the dried blood that hasn’t been wiped away. “My mom.”

“Loved you. Beyond words, beyond reason, beyond death. She loved you, and loves you still. Don’t ever forget that, Noah.”

He nods gravely.

Holmes glances down at the notebook in her hand. “Noah, what was your dad’s name?”