The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(69)

“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.