The Summer Children (The Collector #3)(91)
“What is . . .”
Every page. Every page has a picture from our case files of one of our rescued children with their bear, and a picture from this summer. The kids range in age from twenties to single digits, and they all . . .
“We got permission from Agent Dern,” Priya says as I keep turning pages. “We weren’t sure if contacting the families was actually allowed, but she said as long as Sterling did it and no private information was shared, it should be all right.”
“Eliza?”
“It’s your ten-year anniversary with the Bureau,” she says with a smile and a shrug. “I told them we were putting something together for you, and if they were willing, if they still had the bear, would they mind emailing a picture of kiddo with the bear. We probably got about twenty-five percent. Pretty awesome, really. They emailed them and we printed them off.”
There are pictures of Priya in there, twelve years old and on the too-skinny edge of a growth spurt, blue streaks in her dark hair. There’s one where she’s sitting curled around the bear, scowling at the journal in her hands, a never-ending letter to Chavi. There’s another one her mother must have taken that perfectly captures Priya’s fury, Eddison’s shock, and the bear in midair on its collision course for Eddison’s face.
Eddison sighs, but it’s too fond to be convincing.
And then there’s the new picture, Priya at a restaurant table, her shirt cut at an angle below the bust so her tattoo shows bright on her side. The bear sits on a plate wearing a tiny white shirt with red lettering that says “I Survived Dinner with Guido and Sal.”
We didn’t give bears to most of the Butterflies; they were a bit too old for it, and we didn’t want to seem patronizing. We gave one to Keely, though, and she’s there in her mother’s car, the bear sitting on the dashboard.
There aren’t any pictures of the kids from the past month, and I am so, so grateful for that I can hardly speak.
Vic stands up and walks around the table, kissing their cheeks all in a row. “This is wonderful, ladies. Thank you.”
I nod, too close to bawling myself stupid to be able to form words.
“Okay-ish?” asks Priya, and I nod again.
The baby-faced agent who’s been taking minutes in the IA interviews sticks his head into the conference room. Erickson, that’s his name. “Agents? When you’re ready.”
We stop to put the albums in Vic’s office for safekeeping, then escort the girls out. All three give me tight hugs and murmured thank-yous, and if the trip down the elevator had me a little closer to composure, well that just knocks it right the fuck out of the park. Vic hands me a handkerchief without looking.
When we file back into our seats in the conference room, my credentials are on the table in front of what has become my seat over the past three days, the folder flapped back so the badge faces up. I sit down, wrap my hands around the badge, and inspect it.
Someone, probably Agent Dern, managed to get the blood out of the U. I’ve been trying to do that for four years, with everything from Q-tips to needles to dunking the whole damn thing in soapy water, and there it is, finally clean. There’s Justice, and the eagle, there’s where the gold is dull from being rubbed too many times, surrounded by where it’s too shiny from being touched a lot but not yet too much. For ten years, this badge has been a piece of me.
“Agent Ramirez.”
I look up at Agent Dern, who regards me with a terrible sort of compassion from the other end of the table. “It is the finding of this investigation that your actions were not only appropriate, but necessary. Though we grieve at the loss of a life, you did what had to be done to protect not only your fellow agents but the child being held hostage, and we thank you for your service. Your administrative leave is lifted, and although we are recommending a set course of counseling to assist with the emotional aftermath, you are cleared to be returned to active duty.
“If that’s what you want.”
Eddison’s mouth disappears behind his hand, and he stares at the table with an expression so blank he has to be hurting himself trying not to scowl. Sterling’s hands are folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on them, but those eyes are bright and wet.
Vic . . .
Vic carried me out of hell when I was ten years old, and has carried me so many times since. He meets my eyes and smiles, sad but calm, and nods.
I study the badge in my hands, take a deep breath, and look back at the IA agents on the other side of the table.
“Agent Ramirez, have you made your decision?”
Another slow, deep breath, and all my courage. “I have.”
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was scared of hurting others.
It was strange in context, and she knew that. For so long, the people who were supposed to love her, take care of her, keep her safe, had hurt her instead. She yet bore the scars and always would inside and out. She could trace them with her fingers, with her memories, with her fears.
There’s an outer limit to how much you can heal. There comes a point where time just isn’t a factor anymore: it’s done as much as it can do.
But she survived it, came through it alive even if she was battered, and slowly put together a life for herself. She got away, she made friends, she worked her way into a job she loved.
She just wanted to help people, to help children.