The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(6)

I kneel next to the bed so she doesn’t have to move or strain to see me. “Hi, Rebecca. My name is Eliza. I’m with the FBI. Do you know what that is?”

She shrugs and tilts her head to one side.

“We’re like police, only instead of looking after one city or state, we help look after the whole country. We’re here to help look for Brooklyn.”

She sniffles and leans into her mother, who rubs her arm comfortingly.

Reaching into the bag Ramirez gave me, I pull out a floppy tan stuffed puppy with darker brown patches over its eyes and on one side of its rump. I place him on the bed next to Rebecca’s hand. “This is for you. I know right now everything is a lot. You’re scared for your friend, and you don’t feel good. If you need to yell or punch or throw something, that’s what this guy is for. If you need to hug the stuffing out of something, he’s good for that too.”

She rubs one finger against the puppy’s plush ear. We used to give out teddy bears, but then three years ago . . . well, we shifted over to puppies and cats and monkeys and other things that are distinctly not teddy bears.

“I’ve got some questions I need to ask you, Rebecca, but before we do that, I need you to listen to me for a moment. Rebecca?”

Reluctantly, she meets my eyes. God, this poor kid.

“This is in no way your fault,” I tell her, gently but firmly. “You did not do anything wrong. Brooklyn isn’t missing because of anything you did. Brooklyn is missing, and it’s sad and it’s scary, and I know it’s easy to feel guilty. You’ve probably been up here all night thinking if you hadn’t gone home, if you’d walked with her, if, if, if.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Rebecca nods and curls in closer to her mother.

“But it’s not your fault. Someone took her because they wanted to take her, and they are the only one to blame. I need you to keep saying that to yourself, because it’s the truth. Can you hold on to that?”

Not moving from the circle of her mother’s arms, she reaches for the puppy and hugs it close. Finally, slowly, she nods.

“Okay. Go ahead and have some juice, sweetheart. It’s hard to be sick.”

“I want to help look,” she says, voice raw from coughing, but she does obediently suck down the rest of the juice in the glass. Miriam sets it atop the short bookshelf next to the bed and smooths Rebecca’s sweat-damp hair.

“Right now the best thing you can do for Brooklyn is to get better. I know that’s hard. But people are going to have questions for you, and that’s going to help us look for her. You are helping, sweetheart.”

She’s unconvinced, but honestly, who wouldn’t be? The one day she and Brooklyn don’t walk home together, her best friend gets kidnapped. Whether or not she ultimately accepts that it isn’t her fault, that’s still a hell of a weight to carry.

“Do you think you can answer some questions now? Or do you need to rest a bit first?”

“Are you going to find her?”

Miriam closes her eyes.

“We’re going to do our absolute best.” I hold out my hand, and after a moment, Rebecca takes it, squeezing hard. “I wish I could promise you we’ll find her, Rebecca, I really do. I wish I could snap my fingers and she’d be right here. But I’m not going to lie to you. Not now and not ever. There are a lot of really smart people who are looking for her, and every single one of us is going to do our best.”

She stares at our hands, her eyes pink and puffy. “Okay. What questions?”





4

Almost an hour later, I head back downstairs. There are more questions to ask Rebecca, but she started drifting in and out probably ten minutes before her mother announced it was time for another round of medicine and a nap. Kearney isn’t in the living room when I glance in, but Eddison is, perched on the arm of the couch with his hand on Daniel’s back. Rebecca’s brother is folded nearly in two, his head in his hands. Rather than interrupt, I follow a series of sounds to the kitchen.

Eli is at a long counter with an assembly line of sandwich ingredients. “He’s blaming himself,” he says, not looking up. “Says he shouldn’t have gone on the trip without making sure the girls had a good way to get home. He’s fourteen, he shouldn’t have to . . . he shouldn’t . . .”

“Rebecca tells me he’s a very good brother, for a boy.”

He huffs out a breath that, on a better day, might be a laugh. At the end of the counter, a serving platter has a mountain of sandwiches already prepared. I suspect he’s doing it for something to do, rather than any actual hunger or need. Most of them are probably going to end up in the hands of neighbors and officers. “Miri called Alice yesterday when she checked Rebecca out. Offered to go back and pick Brooklyn up when school let out. Alice told her to focus on getting Rebecca to the doctor, that she and Franklin would figure it out.”

“And their wires got crossed?”

“Frank said he’d take care of it, but then he got shoved into an emergency project meeting. He texted Alice, but she was on a conference call for hours and didn’t check her phone before heading home. I just . . .” He shakes his head helplessly. “I can’t imagine it. How they must be hating themselves right now, and it’s . . . we’ve all been there, with the ‘whoops, I forgot something,’ but to have your kid go missing because of it . . .”