The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(87)

I look at Bran, who nods.

Fuck, I hate this.

As I walk away, Ian steps in to take my place, speaking softly to Bran. I head over to the dog handler, stopping a respectful distance away so as not to crowd or startle the German shepherd at her side. “Hi, I’m Agent Sterling.”

“Lieutenant Waterston, and Officer Furiosa.”

I look down at the dog, who gives a huge, tongue-lolling yawn. Her paws are wrapped in dark blue booties for protection against the cold and damp. “I like the name.”

“She used to bite the hell out of the male trainers who came near her. Never so much as growled at me. Seemed fitting.”

“Is she bone-trained?”

“Yes, ma’am. When they told us how long the body’s likely been there, we were chosen special.”

“And it’s not too cold for her?”

“Not yet. There’s almost no wind chill, it’s a small yard, and it’s warm for snow yet. As long as we’re not out here for hours, she should be just fine to scent.”

“We should probably start along the back fence where the GPR can’t go. It’s out of sight of the road.”

“That’s what we’ll do then. Up, Furiosa.”

The dog obeys, shaking the snow off her rump and tail.

I don’t have to call to the others; as soon as they see Waterston and Furiosa moving, they fan out into position. I return to the men, standing in front of Bran so I can lean back almost imperceptibly against him. Peeling off my leather glove, I take his hand. From the corner of my eye, I can see him look down and frown, and then he pulls his hand away to strip off his own glove so he can lace our fingers together and shove our clasped hands deep in the pocket of his coat. The handles for the quilt bag hang from his other arm, crushed between him and Ian. Together, we stand at the crest of the slope and watch.

To stand witness, as Fisher put it.

About seven feet this side of the fence, roughly halfway across the width of the yard, Officer Furiosa barks, drops to her belly, and crosses her booted paws over her nose. “She’s hit,” Lieutenant Waterston announces. One of the techs hurries forward with flagged stakes, and they move through a kind of hot-or-cold routine with Furiosa to mark out a rough boundary. Once it’s flagged, Furiosa bounds to her paws and noses at Waterston’s hand.

Waterston leads her away from the spot first, then pulls out a treat. “Good girl, Furiosa. You did a very good job.”

The techs and three of the officers start to dig.

Bran’s hand tightens around mine, starting to get painful. Given the circumstances, I’d usually just grit my teeth and bear it, but I think of my arm, and his mother, and instead I rearrange the grasp so I can curl and uncurl my fingers within his, like a heartbeat. He loosens his grip and kisses my hair in apology.

“Do you want to turn around?” I ask softly.

He squeezes my hand twice, a field response for “no” when we can’t speak.

It takes longer to dig than it did in Tampa, the ground colder and harder, the soil different, though thankfully not frozen. Waterston brings Furiosa behind us to the porch to keep her a little warmer on the wood than she would be on the ground. Just in case it’s a false hit and Furiosa needs to scent again. Slowly, the dirt moves away to reveal achingly familiar plastic sheeting.

Bran trembles against my back.

Despite being buried two years later than Erin, the plastic is more tattered, at least from what I can see from eight feet away. One of the techs takes pictures as they work. All of them are sniffling, and not just from the cold. As they gently lift the wrapped bundle, something falls from the plastic and catches on the edge of one of its tears, glinting in the weak sunlight.

Agent Fisher lunges forward, yanking a pair of neoprene gloves from her pocket and snapping them on. The techs freeze to let her carefully pull away whatever it is so it doesn’t get lost. She stares at her hand for a long moment. The tech’s camera flashes to document it. Curling her fingers over the object but not closing them into a fist, Fisher walks back to us.

I gently pull my hand out of Bran’s pocket and take a wide step to the side, almost in front of Ian, so that I don’t block Bran’s sight.

Wordlessly, Fisher uncurls her fingers.

There on her palm rests a necklace. The chain is discolored and the clasp is broken, but the pendant . . .

A pink, yellow, and blue glitter enamel rainbow, the arc ending in two white stars.





29

Bran stares at the necklace, his face bloodless and pale. He saw that necklace every day for ten months and twelve days, bouncing against his sister’s brightly colored shirts and getting tangled in her hair. He clasped it around her neck on Christmas morning and she never took it off.

And neither did Davies.

With a choked-off wail, Bran drops to his knees in the dusting of snow, curling over the quilt his mother gave him to lay over his dead sister. I’m not sure he’s even breathing. His shoulders heave with the effort, but those broken, animal-in-a-trap sounds . . .

I kneel in front of him, sinking my fingers into his curls to brace his head against my chest. My fingertips scratch against his scalp. I don’t try to say anything. What is there to say? But he’s not alone. That’s all I can give him, and it isn’t anywhere near enough, but I can give him that. He is not alone.