The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(32)

“They’re coming back,” I announce.

“So early?” asks Yvonne.

“The night-shift captain doesn’t want them there,” Vic elaborates, scrolling down the messages. “He’s giving Captain Scott some issues. He seems to think Brooklyn just got lost on the route she’s taken every day for three years, and she’ll turn up.”

“He doesn’t really.”

“Probably not, but he also doesn’t like the FBI or Captain Scott, apparently. Ramirez says, and Watts concurs, it makes more sense to come back and get one decent night of rest than to stay and argue with him when there’s a limit to how much they can do at night anyway.”

“So we could probably loop Watts into an early meeting without her swearing at us too vehemently,” I muse.

“Let me call Sam and make sure she doesn’t have any reviews scheduled in the morning.”

As Vic leaves the room, lifting his phone to his ear, Yvonne and Gala start shutting down their computers. Yvonne has to get home if her husband’s going to have any chance to get some grading done after dinner. Gala’s already given up her entire weekend; I’m not going to ask her to stay without an experienced analyst nearby to help. Within a couple of minutes, Ian and I are alone in the room.

“Physically, how are you doing?” I ask, manually copying the names, dates, and pertinent information from the printed files onto my notepad. It’s the kind of question Bran is most comfortable answering when no one is looking at him. I don’t know if Ian is the same way, but I do know he was a career cop, so pride and stoicism are going to play their part.

“The headaches are the constant problem,” he says slowly. “They can be better or worse, but they’re always there. Vision’s declining sharply. Blurring, doubling.”

“That’s why you didn’t rent a car.”

“Not safe to drive anymore. Turned in my license so I wouldn’t be as tempted. Nausea has a way of striking out of the blue.”

“Any seizures?”

“A few. None terrible. No clusters.”

“Anything we can do—lights, sounds, smells, temperatures—to help?”

He chuckles quietly, a far cry from the deep belly laugh he looks like he should have. When he plays Santa each December for the police toy drives and at hospitals, then the laugh booms out of him, but the rest of the time it’s this low, dry sound, rough like it scraped across pavement on the way out. “You, Eliza Sterling, are a wonder.”

My pen hovers over the page, motionless. After a moment, I set it down and turn to look at him. “Sorry?”

“I have sunglasses I can wear when the lights start getting to me,” he says, which does not actually clarify his comment. “Smells only bother me when I’m already sick. Temps . . . I’m a Florida man, born and raised; any place that isn’t broiling is in air-conditioning. I’ve been avoiding the heat where I can. That’s as far as I’ve noticed.”

“Did you tell your doctor you were coming up here?”

He shakes his head. “Didn’t know for sure myself till this morning. Connie will tell him tomorrow.”

“Let me guess: When she calls to reschedule your next appointment?”

He chuckles again, which is basically a yes.

“Why didn’t you tell Bran?”

His smile doesn’t fade so much as shift, turning small and fond and faintly proud.

And sad. So very sad.

“I should have told him as soon as we knew,” he admits. “We were discussing treatments, though, and then whether or not we should, and if declining treatment meant being immediately referred to hospice. I told myself I’d sit down with him once we’d made some decisions. Once we knew for sure. Then it was October.” He looks down at his hands, wide and strong and large-knuckled from age and use. “If I had a choice, Eliza, I wouldn’t have told him now. I would have waited a few weeks, get past this anniversary.”

“But Brooklyn went missing.”

“I would have waited,” he repeats. “Life has a way of mocking our choices.”

“Sometimes, yes. Did you book a hotel when you got your flight, or do you need a place?”

“You offering?”

“Don’t do it, Ian,” Bran says from the doorway. He’s still pale, a muscle in his jaw jumping from the tension, but he’s there, and sooner than I would have expected. “You’ll drown in frills and ruffles.”

“Yet somehow you’ve all survived,” I retort.

“It’s like being in a bottle of Pepto-Bismol,” he continues, pretending to ignore me. “It’s everywhere pink and delicate and untouchable.”

“Slander and lies.”

Ian’s smile grows as his gaze flicks back and forth between the two of us like it’s a game of tennis.

“Her table is perfectly set with linens even when no one eats there.”

“As opposed to yours, which was rescued from the trash?”

“Hey, Priya gave me that table.”

“Someone had to; it’s the only bit of color you have.”

Ian laughs and leans against the conference table. “Did he do the whole house in the black and glass his apartment had?”

“That would require doing something to The House,” I tell him with a wink. “Right now it’s one bedroom and a living room.”