The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(4)
“Sterling.”
“Ready for assignments?” Watts asks, her voice distorted by the car’s speakers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Jesus, Sterling, don’t call me ma’am. Ramirez, I want you with the family. You’re the best for that on either team. Stay with them, be their focus, explain what the rest of us are doing. To the best of your ability, keep them calm, or at least contained. Eddison, please keep in mind these are Vic’s orders, not mine.”
Eddison’s lips twitch. On a better day, it might be a smirk. “Understood. Where do you want me?”
“You’re still second in command on scene, so I want to make sure you meet the day-shift captain and whoever’s in charge of the state police contingent. After that, I want you with Sterling. Sterling, you and Kearney are going to start with the neighbors Brooklyn usually stays with after school. After that, Kearney, you’re going to pair with Burnside. There’s some construction in the back of the neighborhood, an expansion. I want you two to check the sites. You’ll have some of the local cops with you. Sterling, Eddison, you’ll head to the front of the neighborhood and the school. Map Brooklyn’s route, then talk to the administrators and her teachers. The crossing guards are gone for the morning, but they’re all coming in early for the afternoon shift so you can talk to them before they need to be at the intersections.”
“Roger that,” I answer.
“Sterling, you know what I’m going to ask you to do?”
“Not let the Mercers see me?”
“As best you can. Mrs. Mercer is hysterical, and her husband isn’t much better. And while I’m not one to assume you look like every blue-eyed blonde in the world, I’ve got to say you actually do look a lot like this one.”
I study Brooklyn’s picture on my tablet, then flip the visor down to look in the mirror. Watts is not wrong.
It’s one of the things I honestly never anticipated when I decided to join the FBI. I was worried about how I looked, yes, but that’s because I’m the kind of blonde and pretty that makes me look really young. It’s only been in the last year or two that people have stopped asking me if it’s Take Your Daughter to Work Day when I walk into a field office, despite the badge and gun at my hip. I was worried about whether or not anyone would take me seriously, if I’d have to be constantly struggling to get people to listen and answer and obey. So, I made myself a list of rules for work and followed them religiously.
Wear only black and white—stark, severe, not remotely girly or young.
Keep my hair in a bun or twist, equally stark and severe, and make sure it’s not high enough to be confused for a ballerina bun.
Use minimal makeup, enough to look professional but not enough to look like I’m trying too hard or like I enjoy makeup. (I do. I love eye shadow. And lip stains. And gloss. The shelves next to my vanity look like a Sephora annex.)
In hindsight, I can admit I was entirely too worried about it. Even as my wardrobe and style has shifted, as I’ve become more comfortable with the feminine creeping in thanks to the excellent example of Ramirez and other female senior agents, I still think about it.
But looking too young used to be my only concern. It never occurred to me that I’d look too much like a victim, that it could cause a family pain.
And then I came to Quantico and learned about Faith Eddison, and saw pictures, and saw the way her parents both had to take a deep breath before they said anything the first time they met me. Faith as a child was blonde and blue-eyed, and maybe her hair would have darkened over time—maybe she wouldn’t look remotely like me. While it was one thing to know that, it was another to see your son holding the hand of a woman only three years younger than your daughter would be now, with the same coloring as the child you lost.
I never really wondered why it took so long for me to meet Bran’s parents after he and I started dating. The picture on his filing cabinet at the office was enough to warn me.
I flip the visor back up as we pull onto the Mercers’ street. It is a zoo, with police cars—marked and unmarked alike—parked everywhere. Neighbors and friends and family members and complete strangers mill around yards and the street. News crews and vans are scattered anywhere there’s a space for them that isn’t technically on someone’s property. One house has a lemonade stand converted to a volunteer sign-up station.
“For fuck’s sake,” sighs Ramirez. “This is a goddamn mess.”
At my side, Eddison scrubs at his jaw with the hand not curled into a fist.
3
We find a spot for the SUV two houses down from where Watts and her team manage to pull in. She taps the first uniformed officer she finds. “FBI. We’re looking for Captain Scott.”
He turns and points to the Mercers’ house and the uniform standing on the porch steps, arms crossed over his chest and a forbidding scowl discouraging anyone from approaching. His stance is just wide enough that he completely blocks access to the front door.
“Thanks.”
I’m not sure if it’s the air of authority, the walk of purpose, or the look on Eddison’s face, but people very quickly move out of our way. There’s something a little intimidating about nine armed FBI agents in full strut. One of the neighboring yards is absolutely covered with row after row of hot-pink metal flamingos. The ones closest to the street have a banner looped around their necks that reads SUCK IT, STEVE in large block letters, a level of pettiness surely HOA inspired. There’s a sheepish-looking man, though, pulling the flamingos out and stacking them in a wheelbarrow.