The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(83)

“Gracias, mija.”

“Is there one you’d like me to take to Omaha? For Faith?”

Her smile grows a little strong, even if her eyes are still bright with tears. “I’ll give that one to my son to carry. He’ll need a task to help anchor him.”

A knock sounds against the front door, firm enough to carry but soft enough not to wake anyone sleeping.

“Ian or Karwan, I’m assuming.”

“Probably, yes. You know that from the knock?”

“It’s a very distinctive knock.” Finney made me practice that kind of knock—and the same kind of voice—for weeks when I joined his team.

She gets up to answer it. When she comes back in, Ian and Connie Matson are both with her, with another man trailing behind them. He looks around Bran’s age, though a little less grey; he’s just starting to silver at the temples of his dark hair. His skin and eyes are both dark as well, and he’s wearing all black save for a yellow ribbon on his lapel. The Missing Children Awareness ribbon.

Agent Karwan.

“The famous Eliza,” he greets, summoning up a smile on his previously grave face. It doesn’t quite succeed. “A pleasure to meet you, despite the circumstances.”

“Same. I’m glad you’re able to be here.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Thank you for making sure of it.”

Realistically that was Vic, but I’m not going to quibble.

Connie and Ian both have travel mugs, steam drifting out of the lids. Xio moves to the coffee machine on the counter. “Sachin? Coffee?”

“Thank you, Xiomara. That would be appreciated.”

She pours the cup and hands it to him, then roots around her cupboard for a box of tea sachets. “It’s Earl Grey, Eliza. Is that all right?”

“That’s fine, Xio.”

Shira thinks Earl Grey tastes like stewed gym socks. I don’t love it, except occasionally in a lavender London Fog, but I don’t hate it either.

“I remember Mr. Davies,” Karwan says, staring into his coffee. “He helped me study for my math tests. I would never have guessed that he . . .”

“No one guessed, Sachin,” I tell him gently, still feeling strange at using his first name. “No one guessed, and over the course of thirty-one years, there have been an awful lot of people who could have. You were fourteen.”

He nods absently.

It doesn’t matter how often the words are said. He—and Ian and Bran and so many others—will only accept them when they can, and not a moment before.

When Bran comes down, cleanly shaven with his wet hair curling against his forehead, he puts a hand on Ian’s shoulder, gripping tight.

Ian covers the hand with one of his own. “You sure you want to be there for all of this?” the detective asks bluntly. “Either of you.”

“We need to be.”

“Fool boys,” he says, voice gruff. But his other hand reaches out to Karwan, bracing his shoulder. He’s worried, yes, but proud, too, it’s plain to see.

Paul comes down in most of a suit, looking a little dazed. “Routine,” he explains almost sheepishly. “I’m just so used . . .” He trails off, looks around the kitchen, and sits down abruptly. “Today is just . . .”

Bran moves away from Ian to stand behind his father, both hands on the man’s shoulders. Paul takes a shuddering breath.

“Will you two be okay?” I ask. “If you want to call someone . . .”

“Connie is staying with us,” Xio replies, “and Lissi will join us as soon as she’s back from taking the kids to school. She’ll be discreet.”

We sit in tense silence until the time comes to leave. Bran heads out first to put our bags and Karwan’s in the SUV, and I carefully gather up the quilt. Xio pulls a large, brown paper Cracker Barrel bag out of the pantry and holds it open for me.

I drive us to the house Davies rented all those years ago, two streets over from the Eddisons’. The ME’s van is backed into the driveway. Two more black SUVs are parked along the curb on the side of the street, a handful of police cars sprawled along the other side, leaving just enough room for one car to pass between them. I recognize Agent Wilson; he stands near the end of the driveway with a slim, steel-haired woman anxiously clutching her elbows. Probably the current owner or resident of the house.

Bran, Karwan, and Ian join the cluster of law enforcement at the end of the driveway. They’re dressed to blend in, more or less, looking official enough that no one questions their presence. Ian shakes hands with several of the officers, asking after families or people at the station. He’s been retired about ten years now, if I remember correctly, so he’s worked with some of them. Trained most of them, by the looks of it.

One of the officers, in the suit and tie of a detective, holds a hand out to Bran and uses it to pull him into a tight, unself-conscious hug. “I’m so sorry, man.”

“At least we know, right?”

“I guess so. Lissi’s on her way back from the school. She’ll stay with your folks for a while.”

“Manny, this is Sachin Karwan,” Bran says, beginning the introductions. I tune it out and wait for the ME to finish his conversation with a K-9 handler there in case the backyard proves too difficult for the GPR. Manuel, or Manny, as he usually goes by now, is Rafi’s little brother and Lissi’s husband. And, I suddenly recall, one of the kids Davies tutored here in Tampa.