The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(41)

I plop the box of cupcakes on the table. The bakery lady looked at me askance when I asked for them, but yesterday’s leftovers were still fresh enough to sell, and maybe the article from last night was still on my mind when I was deciding on breakfast. I grab one that’s supposed to be strawberry-lemonade and carefully peel away the paper. “Understand, before I say this, that I’m well aware I’m being somewhat hypocritical and that it’s something I and every person on this team is still struggling with, but that it has to be stated as a goal and piece of advice regardless.”

She looks at me and blinks.

“Cases do this. Especially when you’re new. They get in your head and don’t want to let go, and you find yourself trying to give everything you have to it even when you’re not here.”

“Yeah. That’s what it feels like.”

“It takes time to find that balance. Sometimes you’ll get it better than others. This was a good idea, and it will probably help, but it’s not something you’re always going to be able to do.”

“What do you do?”

“You mean when I don’t accidentally stay up all night working on it?”

She laughs and sinks down into her chair. “Sure.”

“I keep a book of crossword puzzles beside the bed. If, after five puzzles, the urge to come in hasn’t subsided, I give up and come in. Maybe sixty percent of the time I can manage to stay put, get it out of my head at least enough to rest, even if I can’t sleep. Ramirez does the same thing with logic puzzles. Eddison DVRs every baseball game he can find in the listings. Kearney watches the really gross forensics documentaries they don’t show until after normal people are sleeping.”

That makes her giggle, and some of the shadows leave her eyes.

I bite into the cupcake, or try to. The frosting is taller than the cake portion, and it smears across my nose. I barely pull it away in time to sneeze.

“Bless you,” says Gala, eyeing the cupcake. “Alternate bites?”

“Between what, mostly sugar and all sugar?”

“You’re the one who brought them.”

“I did not properly anticipate the difficulty of actually consuming them.”

She grins and reaches for one frosted with a skyscraper swirl of cotton-candy pink and blue. “Is there an occasion?”

I shake my head. “I’m being kind. Or something.”

That earns me a queer look, but she doesn’t ask for clarification.

Yvonne is the next one to come in, and she scolds me for the cupcakes, which are Not, as she informs me, peeling back the wrapper on a triple chocolate one, Breakfast Food. She finishes with a groan and a smear of frosting on her nose, because the cupcakes really are that good.

Watts brings Dern in with her. Agent Samantha Dern is probably a decade or so Vic’s senior, a stately, straight-backed older woman who makes no attempt to hide or soften her age. Her hair is silver-white, edging over into the kind of yellow bleached bone that age brings, but her eyes are clear and bright. I’ve never been scared of her like most of the other agents I know, largely because I haven’t done anything to piss her off before, but also because she reminds me a great deal of Marlene Hanoverian. The Dragonmother of Internal Affairs doesn’t roar or flame unless it’s required. Up until that point, you are her agent, and she will protect you and support you with everything in her.

She’s who I’d very much like to be in forty or fifty years.

She smiles at the cupcakes and selects one that’s raspberry and white chocolate, using the baking liner to twist off a good three-quarters of the icing. That she places back in the box for anyone desperate for a sugar rush, leaving herself with a cupcake that can manageably be eaten.

Watts puts another box of protein bars on the table. “There are not enough eggs in cupcakes to count as proper protein,” she informs us. She does, however, take a cupcake.

Vic, Bran, and Ian arrive together. Bran doesn’t look like he slept at all. His jaw is dark with stubble, and his grey-streaked curls flop around without any attempt at taming.

Looking at the bakery box, Vic sighs. “Eliza, you do not give me hope that I can talk Holly out of pizza for breakfast.”

“She’s twenty-five and paying her own bills; it’s an efficient use of leftovers.”

“It’s no worse than Brittany’s cake-in-a-mug breakfasts,” Yvonne points out.

“Holly’s older; I’m working on them in order.” He shakes his head and takes his seat. “Cass and Mercedes and the rest of Watts’s team are on their way up to Richmond, with the exception of the Smiths, who are still with Brooklyn’s grandparents.”

“They really didn’t get anything out of them yesterday?” I ask.

“Bluster and outrage,” Bran replies, sitting down between me and Ian. “They should have better luck today.”

“Any particular reason?”

“We got a notice from TSA,” Watts says. “A couple of weeks ago, Brooklyn’s grandparents bought three plane tickets to Orlando for today’s date.”

“Three?”

“Three. They have a winter home in Kissimmee. And the third ticket is listed for Brooklyn Mercer.”

I blink at her. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. We called Alice and Frank Mercer; they confirmed that his parents had not approached them about taking Brooklyn on a trip. The Smiths should be able to lean on them more firmly with this information.”