The Butterfly Garden (The Collector #1)(49)

“In death as in life,” she agrees grimly.

Side by side in the same case, the twins are positioned closely together, their inner hands linked between them. “Swamp Metalmarks,” the girl adds as he traces a finger over the mottled orange and copper wings. One has her head resting against the other’s shoulder; her sister’s head rests against hers. They look . . .

“They never got along that well when they were alive.”

She takes the stack of photos from the hallway, sifting through them with an unreadable expression. After a moment, she starts sorting them into two stacks in front of her. When she’s done, the one on the left is far taller. She slides it to the far edge of the table, then lays her hands over the shorter stack, fingers laced together.

“I know these girls,” she says quietly. Her face is still impossible to decipher. “Some of them not very well, and some of them were like pieces of my soul, but I knew them. I knew the names he gave them. And after Lyonette introduced us to Cassidy Lawrence, introduced us to the part that could live on after Lyonette went into the glass, others used the hours before death to introduce us to the names they’d had before.”

“You know their real names?”

“You don’t think that at some point the Butterfly names became real?”

“Their legal names, then.”

“Some of them.”

“We could have been notifying their families by now,” says Eddison. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”

“Because I don’t like you,” she says bluntly, and he yanks the photos out from under her hands.

The girl cocks an eyebrow. “You really believe knowledge brings closure, don’t you?” she asks. She might be incredulous, or mocking; Victor isn’t sure. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

“The families deserve to know what happened.”

“Do they?”

“Yes!” Shoving back from the table, Eddison starts pacing before the one-way mirror. “Some of them have been waiting for decades to get word of their loved ones. If they can just know—know that they can finally give up . . .”

Her eyes track him back and forth across the small room. “So you never heard.”

“What?”

“Whoever went missing. You never heard.”

Victor curses under his breath at his partner’s stricken face. Oh, the girl is good, he can admit that. Not that it’s hard to irritate Eddison, but to really get under his skin? “Go see about getting some food delivered,” he orders. “Take a few minutes.”

The door slams behind Eddison.

“Who was it?” asks Inara.

“Do you really think it’s any of your business?”

“How much of what you’ve asked me is really any of yours?”

It’s not the same, and they both know it.

“I don’t believe the knowledge helps,” Inara says after a moment. “If my parents are alive, if they’re dead, it doesn’t change what happened way back then. It stopped hurting a long time ago, as soon as I accepted that they weren’t coming back.”

“Your parents chose to leave,” he reminds her. “None of you chose to be kidnapped.”

She looks down at her burned hands. “I guess I don’t see the difference.”

“If one of Sophia’s girls was kidnapped, do you think she’d ever rest until she knew?”

Inara blinks. “But how does it help? To know they’ve been dead for years; to know they were raped and murdered and then violated further in death?”

“Because then they no longer have to wonder. Don’t you think the girls in the apartment worried about you?”

“People leave,” she says with a shrug.

“But you would have gone back if you could,” he hazards.

She doesn’t answer. Has it ever occurred to her to go back? That she could?

He sighs and rubs tiredly at his face. This isn’t a debate either of them can win.

The door smacks against the wall as it opens too quickly, and Eddison stalks back in. Victor swears under his breath and starts to rise, but Eddison shakes his head. “Let me go, Vic. I know the line.”

Crossing that line in college got the FBI interested in hiring him; crossing it a few times since has gotten him in trouble. Beneath the remnants of red-faced fury, though, Victor can see calm determination. It’s enough for Victor to sit back down. Just in case, he stays on the edge of his seat.

Eddison walks around the table so he can lean over Inara. “As you like to say, here’s the thing: most people are missed. I’m sorry that you had such a shitty family. I am. No child deserves to grow up that way. I am sorry no one missed you, but you don’t get to decide for all those other girls that no one’s missing them.”

He sets a picture frame on the table; Victor doesn’t have to look to know what the frame holds.

“This is my sister, Faith,” says Eddison. “She disappeared when she was eight, and no, we never heard. We don’t know if she’s alive or dead. Twenty years my family has searched and waited for word. Even if we’d found her body, at least we’d finally know. I’d stop looking at blondes in their late twenties and wondering if one of them is Faith, if I’m walking right by her and don’t know it. My mother could stop updating the website she hopes Faith will stumble across. My father could take the reward for information money he’s been saving all these years and fix the house that’s falling down around them. We could finally put my sister to rest and let her go.