The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(64)

“Mercedes and Cass will be here in a few minutes,” he calls over his shoulder from his place in front of the stove. “Mercedes is going to check your arm again.”

“If we do that in here, are you going to be okay? Or are you going to go spiraling off into a guilt complex again?”

He gives me an unimpressed look. “I’ll be fine.”

If he says so.

I grab the flowers from the living room and arrange them in his empty lemonade pitcher, pouring in water and the packet of sugar mix that came with the bouquet. “You’re actually cooking.”

“I said I would.”

“I know, but you get bored halfway through mac and cheese and disaster follows. And here you are managing, what is that, four, five different pans? I didn’t know you even owned that many.”

He scowls and pokes the spatula in the saucepan to stir onions, mushrooms, and taco seasoning. “It was a set.”

And probably a housewarming gift from Jenny and Marlene.

Cass and Mercedes come in through the back door, sniffing the air appreciatively. “Well done, Eliza,” Cass says.

“This is all him.”

They both stare at him.

“In a minute, you’re all going hungry.”

I clear my throat.

“Except, of course, Eliza, who is generously sharing her bacon with the rest of us.”

“The apology bacon,” Cass clarifies. “The bacon you bought her and put a bow on.”

We eat, and then Cass and Bran clean up while Mercedes checks my arm. It isn’t throbbing anymore, at least, and the blisters are starting to shrink down. When we head out, Bran is back in his jeans and UM shirt to make sure everyone in the bullpen knows he’s not there to work.

No one in the office makes a big deal of Eddison being there or about his sister being part of the case. (Even with gag orders, the Bureau runs on gossip, so of course it was going to get out within the department.) He gets a few extra handshakes, some grips on his shoulders, but for the most part, the other agents leave the support unsaid.

We settle into the conference room. At some point in the past few days, I’ve begun to think of one of the chairs as mine, and I might be a little appalled by that. Bran places the box of photos on the table and opens it.

“There are two events,” he says, lifting out the photos and sorting them into stacks. “Stanzi’s birthday was not quite two weeks before Faith disappeared. It was at the park just off the neighborhood, and everyone was invited. There are also pictures from Halloween.”

Like the framed photo on his desk. Teenage Mutant Ninja Princess Ballerina Turtle.

I take a handful of pictures from the party. When Bran was growing up, the neighborhood was predominantly Puerto Rican. It’s still about half Latinx today. Almost everyone knew each other; kids could safely roam in packs from house to house and be welcome. Everyone got together for parties, bringing offerings of food and drink and helping to clean up after. The kind of neighborhood where a wedding or birth is celebrated with gifts of food so the newlyweds or new parents won’t have to cook for a month.

The first picture shows four girls crammed together in the way kids will, no sense of personal space or hesitation. One of them looks more like Bran than Faith does, with her brown skin and dark hair, and she’s wrapped around Faith like a drunk koala. Trying to keep them standing upright is a girl who’s a little darker, kinky black hair in an enormous fluffy ponytail behind her, and the fourth girl, who looks like she’s falling into the others, has long, skinny red-orange braids and a galaxy of freckles.

“The one trying to become kudzu is Lissi,” he says, mostly to Cass. “Faith’s best friend. After college, she married my best friend Rafi’s little brother, Manny. They were hit by a drunk driver on their honeymoon, and she was paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Jesus.”

“She works from home and gives herself strange hours so she can escort the neighborhood kids to and from school every day. We lived too close to the elementary and high schools to get bussed. The carrot-top is Amanda. They called her their token white girl, even though Faith looked as white as she did.” A smile starts to crack through his somber expression. “The other three all grew up speaking both Spanish and English at home, so Amanda learned out of sheer stubbornness. She had the worst accent but wouldn’t give up.”

“Sounds familiar,” Mercedes murmurs, giving me a sideways look.

Familiar, my ass. I spoke German, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, and Arabic before being on this team made me scramble to learn Spanish to keep up. “Dime cuántos idiomas hablas y después hablamos de acentos,” I retort.

“Definitely sounds familiar.”

“Amanda’s family moved out to Seattle when they were all in high school,” Bran continues, eyebrows raised to see if we’re quite done now. “We all kept in touch, though.”

“Even you?” Mercedes asks.

“Even me. I was still . . .” He swallows hard. “I was still their hermano. All the guys in the dorms at college and the academy made fun of me because I’d get letters from them every week. They liked to write in glitter and bright colors. Still do. I think they buy them especially for the letters nowadays.”

“He bought a pack of glitter pens a few months ago for his letters to Amanda,” I tell her.