The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(35)

That includes the families of the perpetrators. Some know, or suspect. Some very, very few don’t care. Others are too scared to leave or tell anyone. The rest are blindsided, shattered, and left with the consequences, with the abuse from neighbors and friends and media, even from law enforcement and courts.

How could they not know?

Because someone good enough to avoid suspicion for twenty years didn’t manage that by showing his evil to his family. He gave them all the good in him and then went a safe distance away from them to let that evil out against others.

It can be hard for law enforcement to have sympathy for the families of murderers and rapists. We tell ourselves we’d know. We’d suspect. As if our loved ones don’t exist in an enormous blind spot.

Mercedes is amazing with child victims. Bran will always be a shoulder for their siblings. Cass has a background in forensics and is usually our best liaison with other law enforcement. I’m the one who talks to the families of the people we suspect or arrest.

I’m the one who says it’s not their fault.

“A call from the prison?” I ask when she doesn’t continue. “Not from him?”

“Right.”

“Ma kore itakh, Shira?”

“He’s in the hospital. Massive stroke. Hasn’t woken up yet.” She takes a slow, deep breath, releases it even more slowly. “They think he’s going to die. They need to know if we want to see him, so they can put us on a list of approved visitors for the guards.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” We sit in silence for a while, save for the creak of the gently swaying hammock and a couple of my neighbors arguing by the hot tub and grill two stories down. “So,” she says eventually, “what’s wrong with you?”





“Mamá? May I put some candy in my lunch today, por favor?”

Xiomara Eddison looked down at her daughter, her hands still in Faith’s lunchbox. She examined the contents—juice box, apple, sandwich, tiny baggie of carrot sticks—and nodded. “I think we can do that.”

Faith cheered and bounced in place, clapping her hands.

Smiling, Xiomara reached for the bag of candy above the fridge. Less than a week after Halloween, it was still bulging with offerings. “Three small things,” she instructed, holding open the bag. “And no gum at school.”

Faith dropped the gum back into the bag. After a minute or two of rooting through, she found what she wanted and gave them to her mother for her lunchbox. “Is Stanzi going to be back at school today?”

“Not today, sweetheart. She’s still contagious.”

Faith sighed and draped herself against her mother in a way she seemed to be learning from her big brother. “She’s been contagious forever,” she complained.

“I know it feels that way.”

“And Amanda’s gone too. Why do they have to be gone at the same time?”

“Amanda’s abuela died, mija; she didn’t plan this.”

Faith sighed again. “I know. I just wanna whine about it ’cuz it’s unfair.”

Xiomara laughed and leaned down to kiss her daughter’s head. “Now where did you learn that?”

“Stanzi’s papá,” she answered. “He says sometimes it just feels good to whine and get it out, even if you know it’s not going to change anything.”

“I suppose that’s true. Now, Brandon has cross-country after school—”

Faith’s nose wrinkled.

“—yes, he’ll come home smelly, and we’ll shove him in the shower before dinner.” She laughed along with her daughter, then continued. “But the practice means he won’t be there to walk you and Lissi home after, and Rafi can’t do it because he’s got football.”

“Could Manny do it? He doesn’t have anything after school yet.”

“Manny is suspended for fighting, so his tío is putting him to work today.”

Faith’s nose wrinkled again.

“So you and Lissi have to promise to stay together, all right? Don’t wait around talking to anyone or trying to play a little longer at the playground. Go straight to Lissi’s. If you don’t have any homework, you can read during her piano lesson, okay?”

“Okay.”

When Xiomara walked her daughter over to Lissi’s house, Manny was there, waiting. His eye was still puffy and swollen and multi-colored from the fight that earned him the suspension. He gave Xiomara a sheepish wave.

“Morning, Tía Xio,” he mumbled.

“Manuelito.”

He cringed. “Tío isn’t coming until close to nine. Mamá said I could walk the girls to school.”

“And if I call Angelica, is she going to tell me the same thing?” she asked.

“Sí, Tía. Promise.”

“All right then. Girls, as you’re walking, make sure you listen to Manuelito.”

The two eight-year-olds giggled over Manny’s long-suffering sigh. At fourteen, he was sure he was too old to be called Manuelito anymore.

Xiomara kissed all three of them, ignoring Manny’s teenage squirm, and headed for her car. Normally all four of the girls walked together, with one or more of the older boys escorting them. Today, though, it would be just Faith and Lissi walking home. She wondered if she should arrange to leave work early.