The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(21)

Bran doesn’t keep personal pictures out and accessible at home, whether in his old apartment or The House, but Eddison keeps precisely two pictures out in his workspace here, sitting side by side on the cabinet next to his desk. The newer one is eight or nine years old. In a misty field stands a giant stone bust of President Abraham Lincoln, with an unfortunately placed hole in the back of its head. On one shoulder stands Bran, smirking and pointing at the hole. On the other shoulder stands Priya Sravasti also smirking and pointing. Vic, Bran, and Mercedes met Priya some eleven years ago when her older sister, Chavi, was murdered by a serial killer. The way Priya tells it, she and Eddison bonded after she threw a teddy bear at his head; they were both grieving, pissed at the world, and missing their sisters. I met her six years ago when the man who killed her sister started stalking her. Or resumed stalking her, really. She and her mother, Deshani, were living about an hour or so south of Denver at that point, which brought Finney, and therefore me, into the investigation.

The other picture, a little faded with age where the glass in the frame hasn’t always blocked out enough light, is almost exactly twenty-five years old. Sixteen-year-old Bran, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved Buccaneers shirt, smiles down at the little girl tugging on his hand. She’s adorable, her curly blonde hair up in pigtails with a glittery pink tiara. Around her blue eyes is a red fabric mask, and over her Ninja Turtle costume—Raphael, as a joke on her brother’s best friend named Rafi—she wears a glittery pink tutu. In her other hand, a Wonder Woman pillowcase bulges at the bottom with candy.

Faith Eddison.

She’s grinning up at her brother, the two middle teeth on the bottom either missing or just starting to grow back in. And Bran, whose resting state is a scowl, looks so soft and charmed and fond, it’s almost painful to see. It’s not that he never looks that way anymore. It’s not that he doesn’t still have that affection and that bit of softness for the ones he loves. It’s that it’s just so rare to see it, so well guarded.

He keeps these photos here at his desk because they’re his reminder of why he does this painful, difficult job. So that, hopefully, no family has to wait five years to find out who killed their sister and daughter, like Priya and Deshani did. So that, hopefully, no family has to go twenty-five-plus years without knowing what happened to their child.

Like the Eddisons have, and will continue to do.

For someone with over sixty distinct scowls in his repertoire, Bran Eddison lives a life of astonishing hope.

I touch the edge of Faith’s frame, that beautiful, happy girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. Then I give one last stretch and head back to the conference room to look for another missing girl.





Brandon Eddison stood at the base of the stairs, draped over the banister in the boneless, sprawling way unique to teenage boys. “Faith!” he called up to the second floor, not for the first time. “Lista?”

“Almost,” his little sister yelled back.

“That’s what you said ten minutes ago!”

“Almost!”

“Do you need help with something?”

“I’m just . . . just trying . . .” She trailed off into grunts of effort that were audible even downstairs. “This tutu won’t stay straight!”

. . . tutu?

Brandon scratched at the back of his head, fingers tangling briefly in his curls. “I didn’t know the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wore tutus,” he said finally.

“They do when they’re princess ballerinas!”

A snack-size candy bar thwacked the back of his head, and he turned to see his mother near the front door, the bowl of candy in her arm and a minatory look in her eyes. “I didn’t even say anything!” he protested.

“Don’t tease her for this, mijo, or, as your loving mother, I’ll be forced to bring out pictures of Bumblebee the Transformer Cowboy.”

Brandon blushed and turned back to the stairs. “Faith, come on down and let me help you with your tutu. The others will be waiting for us.”

A moment later he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as his little sister grumped down the stairs, her curled pigtails bouncing against her shoulders with each step. She wore the superhero turtle costume he was familiar with—Raphael, because Faith adored Brandon’s best friend Rafi—complete with the red mask and the twin plastic sai peeking over the edges of her plastic-and-fabric shell. She also had a glittery pink tiara pinned between her pigtails, and an even more glittery pink tutu that kept falling down despite her best efforts to keep it up.

He hitched up the ribbon banding of the tutu and held it against her stomach. “Here, keep that just there,” he instructed, and she hugged her arms tightly across her middle, the Wonder Woman pillowcase dangling from one hand. He knelt behind her and got the tutu sorted and tied at her back. Keeping one hand on the ribbon to hold it in place, he pulled a safety pin from the hem of his long-sleeved T-shirt and affixed it.

“Jump twice,” he told her.

She obeyed immediately, and while the tutu bounced with her, it didn’t slide or pop the pin.

“There we go. Now are you ready?”

“Lista!” she crowed.

Their mamá kissed them both on the cheek as they walked out the door. “Remember the rules,” she said sternly. “Faith, you and the girls listen to Brandon. If he tells you to do something or that it’s time to come home, you don’t argue.”