The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(81)

“Like your father hurt you,” I agree, stepping into the clearing. Her gun comes up to point at me, but I don’t try to get too close. “I know his new wife is having a little girl. Cara, I promise you, he is never going to get the chance to hurt that baby girl.”

“I’m keeping her safe,” she insists.

“Cara, can you take off the mask? Let me see your face, sweetheart, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

She hesitates, but then she steps behind Nichelle, using her as a shield so she can reach up with the hand holding the gun and push back the mask. It falls to the ground, taking the long silver-blonde wig with it. Her natural hair is a slightly dirtier blonde, dark and damp with sweat where it’s pulled back into a tight braid. This young woman, with her wide cheekbones and filled-in face, doesn’t look much like the broken girl in the photos in the file. She looks healthy, and it’s hard to connect her cheerful presence at the CPS office with the child who cried whenever I left her hospital room.

Until she looks up at me, and I recognize the fear.

“There you are, sweetheart. Are you and Nichelle okay?”

The little girl looks at me disbelievingly, tears tracking down her face. I wish I could wink or smile or something, anything to reassure her, but I can’t, not with Cara looking at me.

Cara’s crying, too, and she shakes her head. “I can’t let them hurt her.”

“Then let me take her, Cara. You know I won’t hurt her.”

The gun is abruptly aimed at me again. “You were supposed to keep Emilia safe, but you let her go to that woman! That woman murdered a little boy!”

“No, Cara, she didn’t. Her brother attacked her when he was high. She defended herself. He wouldn’t have died from the gunshot, it was too minor. The drugs he was on reacted badly with the anesthesia. He died because of the drugs, sweetheart. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No. No, you’re lying!”

“I’ve never lied to you, Cara. Let Nichelle come to me. I’ll keep her safe.”

“No one can keep us safe,” she says gravely. “The world isn’t safe, Mercedes. It never has been.” Her Tidewater drawl, practically nonexistent when she spoke to us in the office, is thick now in her distress.

“But we’re here, Cara. Look at us, you and me. Our fathers hurt us so badly, but we survived. We’re helping other kids. You did so good, sweetheart, you worked so hard to get these kids safe. Sarah? Sarah Carter? She’s so relieved, Cara, she’s safe now. And you did that.”

“Her stepfather was a bad man,” Cara says, the gun lowering slightly.

“He was. He hurt her. And you stopped him.”

Nichelle isn’t struggling, but she watches me, wheels turning in her head. When Cass steps on a dry branch, the crack hanging in the air, Nichelle shifts her weight, bringing her foot down on a smaller branch.

Oh, good girl, you brilliant, beautiful girl.

“Cara, I know you’re protecting Nichelle, but do you remember when I told you there were rules? I’m not allowed to put my gun away if any other gun is out. Do you remember?”

The blonde nods slowly. “Daddy’s friend. He had to put it down.”

“Exactly. I know you’re keeping her safe, Cara, but you’ve got a gun. I’m not allowed to put mine away.”

“But—”

“Don’t you want me to help you, Cara?”

She chose the name Caroline, but Cara is the name carved into her bones, bleeding through her scars. Cara is the name of the frightened girl, the one who wants comforting. The one who trusted me.

Cass and Sterling aren’t going to be able to get a shot on her from the sides, not without risking Nichelle. She has to put down the gun.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Emilia,” she sobs. “I was just trying to protect her.”

“I know. I know you were, she just didn’t understand. She was scared, Cara. And we do things, don’t we, when we’re scared? Put down the gun, sweetheart.”

Preferably before the helicopter I hear can get any closer and spook you.

But she hesitates too long, and the helicopter comes over the clearing, the searchlight blinding. I squint against it with long practice. Cara screams. “You’re trying to trick me!” she shrieks. “You lied to me!”

“Cara, I know you meant the best, but you killed people. There are consequences for that.”

Eddison, Sterling, and Cass all step into the clearing, guns up and leveled at Cara. They stay back, trying to let me keep working.

But I’ve lost her. She stares at me, tears bright in her eyes, her whole body trembling with emotion. “I’m helping them, Mercedes. Like you helped me. Why . . . I thought you’d be proud of me. Why are you trying to stop me? Why?”

“Caroline Tillerman,” Eddison calls over the deafening thump of the copter blades. “Put down the gun. You are under arrest for the murders of Sandra and Daniel Wilkins, Melissa and Samuel Wong—”

Her face twisted in fury, Cara lunges forward, half-tripping over the resistant Nichelle, and fires. Eddison drops to the ground with a grunt.

Suddenly there’s a crack and a black and red rose blooms in Cara’s forehead. She takes a breath, tries to take a second, and tips backward to the ground as Nichelle struggles away from her.