The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(81)

“Sí. Eso me llena de amor.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I know. I can’t answer that yet.”

Which is an answer, in its way, and he nods slowly as he absorbs that. “I can’t tell my parents, can I? Or Tía Lissi?”

“Xio and Paul will probably tell them tomorrow, or the day after.”

He seems to take that in as the no it is, and slaps a smile on his face for the next group of kids.

Around nine-thirty, the flow of kids finally stops. It’s mostly been just the older ones for the last hour or so. When twenty minutes have passed without a single trick-or-treater, I send Alberto home with thanks. We’ve spent the time talking about his studies and where he wants to go with them, and a bit about the FBI and Bran. Then we hit on baseball, and I think I’ve finally found the source of the shit-talking texts Bran gets every time the Rays have a good series.

He hands me the bowl and slides off the rail, then turns back. “I won’t tell my parents,” he says. “Promise.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“But it won’t be for long, right?”

“Not long at all.”

He nods and heads toward home, which turns out to be across the street and three houses down.

The bowl is still a third full of candy. I sift through the variety of mini chocolate bars until I reach a layer of tiny Nerds boxes. I’m in the middle of pouring an entire box into my mouth when the door opens, and I choke.

Bran just stands and watches, the asshat, though one hand does float out in my direction in case I fall, I suppose. “All better?” he asks when I’ve stopped coughing.

“Sure,” I croak.

“Feel like a walk?”

I glance back at the house. “Your folks?”

“Just went up to bed. Thank you, by the way, for, uh . . .”

“Leaving?”

“Giving us space.”

“Your nephew’s a smart kid. Lamentable taste in baseball teams, but a good kid.” I hand him the bowl—resisting the urge to tuck a few boxes of Nerds into my pockets for later—and hop off the railing. He puts the candy back inside and locks up. Before we’re even down the driveway, he reaches for my hand.

“We didn’t really believe we’d find her,” he says halfway down the street. Some of the houses are dark, but even the rest are quiet, save for one house with a roaring party and a yard littered with cars and red Solo cups. “Eventually, anyway. It had been so long, there was nothing new. We didn’t think we’d find her, but we couldn’t give her up.”

That isn’t rare. It’s not even uncommon. But he doesn’t need me to point that out; he already knows. This isn’t Eddison the agent; this is Bran the son, the brother.

“You know my parents started a reward-for-information fund all those years ago? They wouldn’t ever touch it, not even when the house was falling down around them. They’d just make things work and make things work, even when they weren’t working. Then I’d call up Rafi.”

“Because he’s in construction.”

“Sí. He’d bring over new employees, or kids he was mentoring through community service or whatever, and tell my parents he needed to train them in something.”

“That happened to be whatever needed to be fixed.”

“Yes. And because they were only students, it wouldn’t be right to charge full price.”

“You made up the difference?”

“As much as he’d let me. We’ve been doing it for years, because the thought of putting the money to any other use meant giving up. But I couldn’t just send them the money either. They have their pride.”

“They know.”

“No, they don’t. We’ve been careful.”

“Bran, the last time we were here, when you and your dad were out running? That’s when the banister broke all the way through on the stairs. When they sent you out later for groceries, they made bets on when Rafi would suddenly show up with ducklings who needed to learn how to repair banisters and rails.”

“Are you serious?”

I lean into him just hard enough to tilt his next step a bit sideways. “I guess they figure you have your pride too.”

He huffs a sound that’s almost a laugh, and shakes his head again. “All these years, we thought we were getting away with it.”

“What is it she told you when we arrived? She’s your mamá, so of course she knew.”

We wander out of the neighborhood, then down Ehrlich a half mile or so to a gas station. I’m only a little surprised when he picks out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. It was Priya who told me of the Eddison who went through half a pack a day most of the time. According to her, he’d sort of been trying to stop for a couple of years, without any real incentive to do so. Then she saw him reaching for one and told him he smelled worse than the boys’ locker room at her school. Somewhere in trying to find out why she knew what that room smelled like, he forgot to finish reaching for the cig.

Rather than comment on the purchase, I pull out my phone to text Shira. I move to suspend rationing for the next few days.

Fuck yes, thank you.

Holding up?

Family meeting. Ima said anyone who wanted to go visit has her absolute support, and she’ll even go to Florida with them if they want, but for herself, she’s choosing not to go to either the hospital or the prison.