The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(31)

“Ian?” I say. “What’s your diagnosis?”





11

Bran flinches again, full body, and scowls at me. It only takes a moment, though, for him to realize that Ian hasn’t corrected me, hasn’t refuted that there is a diagnosis of some sort. He turns in his chair, the blood draining from his face. “Ian?”

His friend, his first mentor, the man who saved his life in very important ways, gives him a sad smile. “I told myself it was too much of a reach,” he says. “I was so desperate to find Faith, or a reason I couldn’t find Faith, I was grasping at anything. Forging connections out of straw. I wanted it too badly.”

“Ian.”

“I made notes in my book,” he continues, patting the tattered composition book fondly, as one would a beloved dog. Probably just as faithful, really. “I didn’t make the files, though, because I couldn’t convince myself it was real.”

“Ian,” Bran grits out.

“And then this summer, I finally let Connie nag me to the doctor for the headaches I’ve been having for a while now.” Two fingers tap the ridge of bone over his eye, where his bushy eyebrow nearly hides a healing scar. “Malignant glioblastoma. Out to take us old men, I guess.”

“Incurable,” I murmur.

“Not too treatable either, if I go that route.”

“If?” Bran asks sharply.

“The most it can buy me is a few extra months, Brandon. I don’t know if that’s worth it. Connie and I are still discussing it.”

Which means they’ve decided against treatment but have gotten grief over it from others. If he was diagnosed this summer, why didn’t he tell Bran sooner?

“I was out in the studio last night, just sitting. Don’t feel comfortable working the kiln without Connie there now. Going back through Faith’s file, through the book. News playing in the background. Then I look up and see a little blonde girl on the television. Brooklyn Mercer. And there behind the reporter, your girl Ramirez talking to an officer. Started wondering when I decided being desperate meant I must be wrong rather than investigating it properly. So here I am.” Tears track down his weathered cheeks. I’m not sure he’s noticed them. “Six little girls,” he says again. “Look at them. How can they not be connected?”

Muttering curses under his breath, most of them not in English, Bran shoves back from the table and stalks out of the conference room. I watch him go, but if I try to follow immediately, he will bite my head off. Then, later, he’ll feel bad about it. Feeling guilty will make him snap and snarl, and he’ll bite my head off again. Not just me, to be fair. Anyone. But it’s best to give him some space to get through this first flash of . . . fear? Fury? Grief?

All of them, and more.

I look down at my lists from last night. I can filter my tagged files, I think, to show just October and November disappearances. We’ll have to set the program on both ViCAP and NCMEC, though; Caitlyn Glau wasn’t in ViCAP. Police investigating her disappearance concluded that she was likely a runaway, though I can’t imagine they had evidence to support that. Yvonne should probably set the filters. Me being fairly confident in my computer skills doesn’t stack up against her doing this for a living.

We’ll have to put together file requests, transition local cold cases to federal jurisdiction . . . once we figure out which cases actually belong to federal jurisdiction, if any of them do.

Sharp, fleeting pain flares between my eyes. “Ow!”

Vic settles back into his chair.

“Did you just flick me?” I demand.

“You were spiraling.”

“I was thinking.”

“You were thinking so hard you didn’t hear three different questions directed at you.”

Ian scrubs his knuckles against his cheeks. “Brandon mentioned you do that sometimes. It’s impressive to see.”

“Less so after the third or fourth time,” Vic mutters.

Gala grins, but it fades quickly under the weight of the tension in the room.

“What were the questions?”

“Never mind. What do you think?”

“I don’t know that I’m entirely convinced,” I say slowly, “but I do think it’s worth looking into properly. We passed forty-eight hours; the investigation is shifting. If there’s something to this, it could help us find Brooklyn. Maybe even find these other girls. If there isn’t anything to this, it’s part of something we were already trying to cross off. I think we should go through this with Watts and Dern in the morning.”

“Why Sam?” asks Vic.

I’m pretty sure he’s one of less than a dozen people in the Bureau comfortable with referring to Agent Samantha Dern—the Dragonmother of Internal Affairs—as Sam.

“There’s already concern about Bran being on this case right now. And of course you already know that because you’re the unit chief.”

He grimaces but nods.

“If this is connected, he can’t work the case as an agent. Material witness, maybe, but not as an agent. Not if his sister is in the mix.”

Bran’s—no, Eddison’s—phone buzzes with a series of texts. Vic’s follows suit. I grab Eddison’s and punch in the unlock code that I’m really not supposed to know, given that it’s his work cell, and see a string of messages from Ramirez.