The Roses of May (The Collector Trilogy Book 2) Page 15

  “Surviving the Garden,” she says finally, voice barely more than a whisper, “thriving in the Garden, relied on understanding the Gardener. Understanding his sons. I’m out of the Garden now, and I don’t want to understand anymore. I don’t want to live in that anymore. I get that he needs to explain, but I need to not listen. I need to not bear that weight. I need . . .” She swallows, her eyes bright with tears, but he suspects she’s pissed more than sad. “I need to not hear him swear he loves me.”

  There’s something there, something Vic would probably recognize and know how to gracefully address.

  “His feelings aren’t your fault, you know.”

  Eddison is not graceful.

  She snorts, blinking away the tears and the rage, back to more comfortable ground with mockery and sniping. “I learned a long time ago not to claim responsibility for men’s feelings about me.”

  “Then you already know that whatever his feelings for you, whatever he thinks those feelings are, you don’t have to feel guilty about the pain they’re causing him.”

  “Okay, Yoda.”

  A squeal of metal gives them half a moment’s notice before a head pops up over the ladder to the fire escape. “Inara! Come introduce your agent!”

  He glances at Inara, mouths Your agent?

  She just shrugs. “It’s better than pet agent.”

  Thank fucking God.

  “Come on,” she tells him, sliding to her feet. “You can meet the ones here and then come with us. Now you’ve seen the apartment, you’re going to twitch until you check out our route to work.”

  “You always take the same route?”

  She just rolls her eyes and starts down the ladder.

  Most of the young women are familiar from Inara’s stories of them. After introductions, four of them get dressed and head out, their uniforms already at the restaurant. They chatter and laugh on the subway, doing hair and makeup without mirrors or mistakes despite the swaying of the train and the constant stops and starts. They exchange greetings with a few people who seem to be regulars on the route.

  Eddison has shared a hotel room with Ramirez enough to have a slightly befuddled awe for the process of full makeup, but that was seeing her tools spread out across the entire top of the dresser with multiple mirrors. Watching this quartet makes him fervently glad to be male, where getting his face ready for work may or may not mean shaving.

  The Evening Star is much nicer than he expects, given where the girls choose to live. Even in his suit, he feels a little underdressed.

  “Come meet Guilian,” Inara says, pushing him into the restaurant. “Besides, Bliss will pout if she knows you were here and didn’t say hello.”

  “Pout? Or cheer?”

  “I don’t see why she can’t do both.”

  Guilian is a large, heavyset redhead whose thinning hair is retreating from his scalp and finding refuge in the bristling moustache that hides most of the lower half of his face. He clasps Eddison’s hand in a firm grip, his other hand on the agent’s shoulder. “Thank you for helping Inara get home safely,” he says solemnly.

  If Eddison looks half as uncomfortable as he feels, he can completely understand why Inara is snickering beside him.

  Bliss is hardly five feet of snarls and attitude and a mouth bigger than the world, but when she bares her teeth at him, it’s a hell of a lot closer to a smile than he usually sees from her. “I thought I felt the tone of the place lower.” Her curly black hair is pinned back in an intricate twist, safely away from the food, and it’s only seeing her stand next to one of the other waitresses that he realizes her uniform is slightly different.

  The waiters all wear tuxedos, the waitresses strapless black evening gowns with stand-alone collars and cuffs in crisp white, black bowties at their throats. But Bliss—and, he’s willing to bet, Inara—has a style that comes up over her back, the collar stitched to the neck. It covers the wings.

  He looks over at Guilian, standing in the door to the kitchen, and the restaurant owner and chef nods.

  Small wonder Inara came back to work at the same restaurant.

  Bliss kicks him in the ankle, more annoying than painful, and it isn’t hard to imagine a yappy little ankle-biter dog with her curly hair. “Please tell me he can’t write her anymore,” she says quietly.

  “Not without consequence.”

  “He doesn’t understand consequence as well as he should.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Is your other pet okay?” Her smile gets wider at his groan, almost friendly. Almost. “Vic mentioned you were gone for a case. Seemed a little strange he and Mercedes wouldn’t be there.”

  “We do individual consults, you know.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine for now,” he sighs. He’s starting to think he did something terrible in a previous life to be surrounded by such dangerous women in this one.

  He’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  “If Guilian offers you the chef’s table, take it,” she advises him. “He doesn’t do it often.”

  “Isn’t that in the kitchen?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t you all hang out in the kitchen when you’re not checking on patrons?”

  Her wicked laugh answers that. A wiser man would make his excuses, maybe. Make his escape, definitely.

  But Guilian holds the kitchen door open in invitation, and Eddison finds himself nodding, and what the hell, how often is he going to get to eat in a restaurant this nice?

  The baby’s breath looks different this time. The tissue paper wrapping is sky blue, not green, and there are thin blue ribbons twined through the stiff clusters. The card is the same, though, and I dutifully send pictures along to Finney and Eddison before heading back inside to make sure we have a couple of clean mugs.

  When my new agents arrive, Archer accepts the offer of coffee with a startled smile, while Sterling sheepishly asks if we have any tea.

  Lord, do we ever.

  Archer keeps giving me strange looks as they check over the bundle and ask me questions, like he expects me to still be bitchy about last Thursday. I don’t generally have the energy for grudges, but if it makes him sweat, I’m content to leave the impression uncorrected. Sterling keeps an eye on him, in a very subtle, understated way. Archer probably doesn’t even notice. I don’t know that I would have picked up on it if she hadn’t deliberately caught my eye before turning back to him.

  It’s weirdly comforting.

  I have the security footage pulled up on my laptop, cued to about half an hour after Mum left for work. It’s too dark to get a good picture of whoever left the flowers and I’m not sure if that’s purposeful or not. There’s maybe an impression of height (average) but even when Archer fiddles with filters to bring out more detail, the person is too bundled up against the cold to get anything useful. Only their eyes and a bit of the nose are visible.

  “Do you recognize him?” Archer asks, as Sterling scans back earlier than the time stamp.

  “How are you so sure it’s a he?”

  “Way he walks, stands,” Sterling answers absently. Her eyes are glued to the screen, looking for anything that jumps out before the mystery man approached.

  Archer leans against the back of the couch. “So that’s a no on the recognition, then.”

  “I can see why they gave you the shiny, shiny badge.”

  Sterling turns her aborted laugh into a throat-clearing cough. “We’ll ask your neighbors, find out if anyone saw where he came from or went. Maybe someone will know who he is.”

  “Did your section chief give approval for that?”

  “We’re not going to stop doing our jobs in anticipation of being told to back off,” she says easily.

  “And when the neighbors ask what’s going on?”

  “You really think they don’t already know who you are?” Archer shakes his head at his partner’s glare. “Every spring, every city with a victim starts plastering photos all over the place with i
f-you-have-new-information-call banners. Your mother was profiled in the Economist and said you were moving to Huntington. People know who you are, Priya. It’s inescapable.”

  “Just because you’ve studied a case obsessively doesn’t mean everyone else is familiar with it,” I retort. “Most people don’t pay that much attention to something that doesn’t directly affect them.”

  “When the new neighbors bring a serial killer trailing along after them, it tends to affect people.”

  It affected Aimée, but of course, none of us knew that was a possibility until it was too late. He’s still an asshole for pointing it out.

  “You don’t even know if this is the killer,” I say, and Sterling nods.

  “Who else could it possibly be?”

  “You should have seen some of the letters and gifts we got from the crime fans and amateur grief counselors. You’d be amazed how many people thought it was appropriate to send us chrysanthemums.”

  A tinkling piano theme rings out during the appalled silence, and Sterling glances at it with a frown. “Finney. I’ll be right back.” Answering the call with a perfunctory “Sir,” she heads into the kitchen.

  “When do you move to Paris?” asks Archer.

  “May.”

  “Hm.” He fidgets with the cuff of his coat, fingers running along the nearly invisible line of stitches. “You know . . .”

  “I’m assuming I’m about to.”

  “Finney really didn’t warn us about your mouth.”

  “How would Finney know?” I give him a sweet, innocent smile and swallow the last of my tea.

  Archer stares at me, then visibly collects himself. “You know that if this is the killer, this could be our only chance to catch him? We may never again know what city he’s in before he kills.”

  “Looking for a career boost, Agent Archer?”

  “Trying to bring to justice a man who’s killed sixteen girls,” he snaps. “Seeing as one of them is your sister, I’d think you’d be a bit more appreciative.”

  “You’d think.”

  I can actually hear his teeth grinding.

  “Finney said you live here in Huntington,” I say after a while. Warmth seeps into my fingers where they’re wrapped around my empty mug. “From what I understand, you’re supposed to be doing drive-bys before and after work?”

  “I am driving by, yes.”

  “Then it seems to me the person in the best position to learn anything would be you. After all, if he wanted me or Mum to see him, he’d just knock on the door or ring the bell.” I shrug at his nasty look. “The problem with making me bait—as I assume you were going to propose—is that it’s of limited value if the target doesn’t know he’s on a deadline. Why should he hurry?”

  “But if you leave before the flowers finish—”

  “Did any of his victims get flowers before their deaths?”

  “Not that we’ve been able to determine,” Sterling answers, standing in the kitchen doorway and watching us thoughtfully. She flips her phone in her hand, catching it easily. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking we don’t know enough to guess at the intentions of the person sending these,” I say honestly. “If it’s the killer, he’s breaking pattern. If it’s not the killer, we can’t trust him to follow a pattern he didn’t create. There’s no way to know if he’ll go all the way down the line.” I know what I’m willing to trust, but they’re federal agents; they’re not supposed to make assumptions based on gut feelings. “Bait is only useful if you know what the reaction is going to be.”

  “No one is going to suggest using you as bait,” Sterling says, her voice sharp.

  We both look at Archer, who at least has the grace to look uncomfortable.

  “Finney needs us up in Denver,” Sterling continues after a moment. “We’ll be back this evening, though, to talk to the neighbors. Hopefully we’ll catch them home from work. I’ll check in with you when we call it a night.”

  “Bring a travel mug. We’ll hook you up with tea for the drive home.”

  She actually smiles, a bright flash of a thing here and gone that lights up her whole face.

  The agents head out into the grey Monday, sleet drizzling down unpleasantly. I don’t have any intention of walking through that to go to chess. Checking the porch has become a habit, though, even when I have no plans to leave the house.

  I text the Quantico Three to give them an update, then knuckle down to schoolwork for a few hours. After a lunch of leftover pizza, I plant myself in the living room with the empty journal boxes. For the past week, the journals have just sat there in heaps except when I’m reading them.

  Neatly ordered heaps, thanks to Mum, but heaps nonetheless. It’s time to put them away for now. I even bring down the journals I have in my room.

  Still, when I get to the San Diego books, I take them to the couch and curl up with them. I only skimmed through before, looking for the entries about the flower deliveries, and Mum was the one to make scans for the agents. This time, I want to actually read them.

  It feels like sitting with Aimée for a while, and I owe her that much. I’m not naïve enough to think her death is my fault, but it is my burden. I owe it to her to remember her not just as a victim, but as my friend.

  Aimée was the effortless kind of pretty, and genuinely didn’t seem to recognize that she was. Not that she thought she was ugly, she just didn’t seem to pay attention to what was in the mirror short of making sure her hair was in order. When the amaranth was in bloom, she’d pin pink-red clusters around her ribbon-wrapped bun, and her mother would tease her about stealing food. She was in ballet and ran the French Club. Her love for all things French came from her mother, I’m sure, who moved from Mexico to France for school and then fell in love with an American.

  We were in French class together, the only two with the intent of actually using the language, not just because we needed it to graduate or get scholarships. I’m still not entirely sure how she talked me into French Club, except that she promised it wouldn’t ask anything of me, and maybe I was lonely by that point. I used to be a social creature. I remember that. I just can’t remember what it was that made me work that way.

  Aimée was sweet, and kind, and she never asked me why I was hurting, and I never explained. It was such a relief to have one person in my life who didn’t know about Chavi. One person who didn’t know the old Priya, and so couldn’t compare me to who I’d been and find me lacking or discomfiting now. Aimée saw my thorns and never tried to tell me I shouldn’t have them.

  Asking her if we could stay in touch may have been the bravest thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t decide how I wanted her to answer. Keeping a friend seemed just as terrifying as losing one.

  She was there with me the day I found baby’s breath on the doorstep. She’d laughed and said someone forgot to add the flowers, and I pinned it all around her bun until she had a bristling crown like a fairy.

  And when I told Chavi about it, the ink all glittery pink for a good mood, I said how much it reminded me of that last birthday party, all the flower crowns and the wreath of white silk roses I still had in my dresser.

  Still have in my dresser.

  Thoughts of Aimée keep running through my head as I pack my journals back into the boxes, this time keeping them carefully in order. Chavi and I used the journals to settle any number of arguments or faulty memories, or just reminiscing for the hell of it, and they always ended up repacked however we happened to shove them in, hers and mine all mixed together. This time, though, it’s just mine in each box, until the last three finished books sit atop the taped boxes.

  Over dinner, Mum points at the stacks of Chavi’s journals, the sushi roll nearly falling from her chopsticks as she waves them around. “Have you thought about what to do with those?”

  “What to do with them?”

  “Are we taking them with us?”

  The whole house is a mess, as we’re finally going through boxes and deciding what
we are definitely taking with us to France, what we need to think about more, and what we’re either throwing out or donating. It hadn’t occurred to me to think about the journals.

  “I’m not suggesting throwing them out,” she continues after a moment. She eyes me carefully, like she’s afraid I’m about to explode. “I’m saying maybe you should read back through them, decide what you want to do.”

  “Will you mind if I keep them?”

  She twirls her chopsticks to flick me on the nose with the clean ends. “I don’t like holding on to the past, you know that, but this is not something for me to decide. As much as those are Chavi’s diaries, they’re also letters to you. If you want to keep them, keep them. Whatever you decide . . .” She blows out a sharp breath, tongue flicking over her lip to catch a grain of rice clinging to the gold hoop. “France can be a fresh start for us, but I will never, ever suggest leaving Chavi behind. I just want to make sure we’re keeping them because you want them, not because you feel like you should.”

  Okay, I can see that.

  So while Mum rattles around the kitchen swearing at the boxes of pots and plates and all, I settle back into the couch with the first stack of love letters from my sister. I’ve only ever seen the pieces Chavi chose to show me.

  The early ones are written in crayon, the letters huge and sometimes oddly formed, the spelling absolutely atrocious in a way that’s only cute when the writer is in a single-digit age. She was so excited about me, promising to be the best-ever big sister, to love me always, even swearing up and down to share her favorite toys. The one about two days after I was born is freaking adorable, mainly because she was so sulky it practically oozes off the paper.

  Somehow five-year-old Chavi hadn’t quite understood that a baby sister would be, you know, a baby, and therefore not able to play with her right away.

  It sets a comfortable pattern. I get up in the morning, check the front step, do my schoolwork, sometimes head to chess or the store, come back in the afternoon to go through my stuff and the linens, more schoolwork, dinner, help Mum with downstairs boxes, and then spend half the night reading Chavi’s journals.