The Roses of May (The Collector Trilogy Book 2) Read online

“Just Landon. Took the rope with him, even.”

  “So why hasn’t he tried to go inside Priya’s house?” Ramirez asks. “Clearly he can take care of the cameras, but there’s no sign that he’s tried to go in, even when Priya has been home alone. Why not?”

  Scrubbing at his face, Eddison bites off a growl. He jerks his chin at the bright stack of case folders. “The answer’s in there somewhere. Something we haven’t connected because he’s seeing something we’re not.”

  “Finney?” says Vic. “You have the freshest eyes when it comes to these cases. Anything jump?”

  They can hear the click of keys and the shuffle of papers, Finney going through his copies of the case reports and his own notes on them. “Maybe.”

  The agents at Quantico wait, but he doesn’t immediately continue. When the silence stretches into discomfort, Ramirez throws her pen at the speaker. “Well?”

  “What makes him decide whether or not to rape?”

  “We’ve never known,” Eddison answers automatically.

  “Look at Leigh Clark,” Vic says. Neither of his partners reaches for that folder; they don’t need to see those pictures. “Of the girls, hers was the most vicious attack. If she’d somehow survived, she would have almost certainly had permanent damage from the rape alone. What was it about her that made him lose control like that?”

  “Her parents held back in their statements. They didn’t want to say anything bad about their daughter, but most of the other interviews mentioned that Leigh was a wild child. Sex, smoking, drugs . . . so the extra viciousness was a punishment?”

  “Zoraida Bourret was treated gently, her throat was slit while she was unconscious, and unconscious not from a blow to the head but from partial asphyxiation.” Vic’s thick fingers drum on the table. “Every statement in that folder says she was a good girl, family first, never went out with anyone because she was needed at home.”

  “But Natalie Root wasn’t a virgin,” Eddison points out. “She was only a few months out from a pregnancy scare, and she was left unmolested.”

  “And Rachel Ortiz,” adds Ramirez. “She was raped, but the ME said she was almost definitely a virgin before the attack.”

  “But we’re looking at facts; he’s deciding based on his perception of them.”

  “I’m starting to see why none of the bosses want to split you three up,” Finney observes dryly. “But let’s play: if he was watching the girls to pass judgment on them, then he watched Priya five years ago. She and her sister were incredibly close, so for him to make any meaningful evaluation of Chavi, he saw a lot of Priya, too.”

  “And he fell in love with her.”

  “Isn’t that a jump? Especially if we’re saying this isn’t about sex?”

  Ramirez shakes her head. “I said love, not lust. Like courtly love: it’s supposed to be chaste, pure. And think about it, Priya doesn’t date. She isn’t friends with boys. She does her schoolwork, she plays chess with a bunch of veterans, she stays in with her mother. If it’s perceived purity he’s hung up on, you can’t really do better than Priya.”

  “Then wouldn’t he have attacked her after I was there?” Eddison points out, an ache gripping his chest.

  “You didn’t spend the night.”

  “No, but we were alone in the house for a few hours before Deshani came home. And we walked to and from chess together the next morning.”

  They all absorb that in silence, then Finney clears his throat. “You were protecting her. In nosing around Landon, you were protecting Priya. He probably saw you as an ally.”

  Ramirez glances to Eddison, the corner of her mouth jumping slightly. “And anyone who’s seen you and Priya spend time together wouldn’t see you as anything other than family.”

  He flips her off rather than answer, though she’s not wrong.

  “So when he gets up to date on the flowers, what happens then?” Finney asks. “Do we think he’s going to approach somehow? Attack her?”

  “She’s moving in a month.”

  “Chavi’s girlfriend, Josephine,” Ramirez says, skimming through the yellow folder. “She mentioned an unfamiliar man at the neighborhood spring festival a couple weeks before the murder. Said he wasn’t creepy, just attentive, especially to Chavi and Priya.”

  “To both of them?”

  “She said he mentioned having a sister. He seemed to find it charming how close they were.” She closes the folder and taps her thumbs against it, not in any discernible rhythm. “Chavi and Josephine weren’t out except to their mothers and Priya. Deshani said her husband would have gone through the roof, but the girls had been best friends since the Sravastis moved to Boston, so no one ever suspected they were dating.”

  “So as far as he knew, Chavi was a good friend and a great sister.”

  “Josephine is . . .” After a flurry of clicking keys, Finney makes a soft sound of triumph. “She’s in New York. Columbia Law.”

  “I could take the train up,” Eddison offers. “Take the pictures Priya gave us, see if anyone looks familiar. It’s been five years, but something might ring a bell.”

  “Get more mugs from your friend,” Vic tells him. “Inara says they’re almost out.”

  “In a week and a half? The box had three dozen!”

  Smacking her forehead against the table, Ramirez dissolves into soft, semi-hysterical laughter.

  “Priya called this afternoon,” Finney says once they’ve settled somewhat. “There were yellow chrysanthemums on the doorstep when she got home from a field trip; the oldest vet and his granddaughter took her to their church to see the windows. First flowers in just over a week.”

  Chavi had a sunburst of yellow chrysanthemums around her head, a few blossoms placed in her dark hair.

  “Did Priya . . .” But Eddison doesn’t know how to ask that question, not of Finney. Not in front of Ramirez and Vic.

  “She asked me for Ward’s phone number so she could give it to her mother,” he replies. “Speaking of which . . .”

  “Don’t say it,” groans Vic.

  “Ward rejected the request for a protection detail on the house, then chewed me out for wasting Bureau resources on a community service murder that has no connection to any active case.”

  Eddison sputters. “No connection?”

  But Vic gives a resigned sigh. “Let me guess: can’t be our killer because the profile says he doesn’t kill men, can’t be the stalker because he’s shown no signs of being violent. Pure coincidence.”

  “Pretty much, and her boss is backing her up. Huntington PD is being remarkably polite over us not telling them about the stalking investigation—I suspect we can thank Deshani for that, after she eviscerated the captain for the behavior of Officer Clare—and they’ve agreed to keep me updated on the progress of their investigation.”

  “Is Ward pushing against Sterling and Archer yet?”

  “So far she’s focused on me and I’m trying to keep it that way. I’ve got to be honest, Vic, if she gets me much more against the wall, I’m doing my best, but . . .”

  “Understood. I’ve got a meeting with one of the assistant directors tomorrow. He doesn’t like Ward, but he also doesn’t like interfering in other agents’ cases. I’m not sure how that’s going to go.”

  “Both Sravastis mapped out their movements in the days around Landon’s estimated date of death,” Finney says after a minute. “No holes large enough for the locals to accuse them of anything. That’s something.”

  “Oh?” Vic’s voice is far too mild for the complicated expression. “I thought we were all politely ignoring the fact that Deshani is one hundred percent capable of killing a man who threatens her daughter.”

  “She wouldn’t have been messy,” Eddison and Ramirez say together.

  Finney groans. “Terrifying woman. Let me know what you get from Josephine.”

  It’s Ramirez who reaches across to shut off the speaker, ending the call. “Priya and Deshani are careful,” she whispers. “They’re smart, and obse
rvant, and they pay attention. When their gut tells them something is off, they listen. How do we find someone they don’t notice?”

  Neither of the men tries to answer her.

  Neither of them points out there are only four flowers left to be delivered.

  The fourth mega-crash of the morning has Mum swearing in an accent she mostly left in London, with a few Hindi curses slipped in for good measure. A glance outside says the shipping container is once again in the middle of the driveway, not off to the right as it needs to be so Mum can still pull the car out of the garage. I could almost feel bad for the deliverymen—Mum started out displeased about having to take the day off work so she could sign for the delivery, some bullshit about my signature not being acceptable because I’m a minor, but four times? Really?

  And because she’s in a bad mood, and because we woke up to hyacinths on the doorstep, I am safely sequestered in my room with one of Chavi’s journals, staying the hell out of the way.

  I haven’t read straight through the journals—there’s too many to manage it quickly—but I’ve jumped around, picking them up at random and skimming through. Where mine have photographs slipped in all over the place like bizarre bookmarks, hers are full of sketches, many on the pages themselves, as she either lost track of what she wanted to say or couldn’t make the words she had say it. Even after she died, it never felt right to read them. They were still private.

  The Chavi of five springs ago was excited and scared in pretty equal measure. She was so happy with Josephine, almost giddy to be dating her best friend, but she was scared of Dad’s reaction when he eventually found out. Not just for herself and Josephine, but for me, too—would Dad have insisted on cutting off contact between us once she left for school? And school, too. She’d been accepted to Sarah Lawrence and Josephine was going to NYU, so they’d even be in the same metropolitan area, but it was college and new, and as much as she was looking forward to it, she worried.

  I squirm through her entry about her and Mum giving me my bindi, mainly because it segued into a discussion on tampons and pads and other period things, and on the second day of my first period, I was still a bit squicky about it all. I’d known the theory, and obviously I’d been around Chavi and Mum for many, many periods, but still. Not even twelve, at that point. There really isn’t a way for a lesson in using tampons to not be mortifying at that age.

  Toward the end, there are drawings tucked in between the memories from the spring festival. We held all sorts of neighborhood parties and festivals at the old church, sometimes to raise money for repairs and to augment Frank’s salary without him knowing, sometimes for charity. Sometimes just for fun. Chavi had spent both days painting faces and drawing caricatures, and I’d helped younger kids make flower crowns and run a maze made of old bedsheets.

  It was what gave me the idea for my birthday party, seeing all the munchkins running around with flowers and trailing ribbons.

  Leaving the notebook open on the bed, I slide off and open the top middle drawer of my dresser. I think it’s meant for socks or something, but I have it lined in velvet to hold the flower crowns from my birthday. Chavi’s was made of silk chrysanthemums, like a fringed headband, and Mum’s was a bristling, angular wreath of lavender that made her look like a brown-skinned Demeter. Mine was white roses, big bloomed and heavy, with five different shades of blue ribbon weaving through and trailing down the back.

  It’s still heavy, but a little too small now.

  When we were on a break during the festival, Chavi had chased me through the maze, both of us laughing our heads off, and when I made it through to the exit, Josephine had caught and twirled me in great circles until Chavi crashed into us both. We couldn’t even get up we were giggling so hard, breathless and full of life.

  I didn’t mean to lose contact with Josephine, but I think we both knew it was going to happen. As much as I loved her as another sister, there was a Chavi-shaped space between us, and the edges of it hurt.

  With the too-small crown of roses still on my head, perched at a somewhat precarious angle, I plop back onto the bed and start reading again.

  She’s talking about the second day, when Dad gave Mum so much shit about eating a burger that she went and got two beef hot dogs just to be spiteful, and the tone shifts. I remember us sitting a little apart from everyone, sprawled over a blanket with Josephine in the shade rather than at the picnic tables or the pavilions. Chavi and I always made a point of scarfing our burgers down first so Dad wouldn’t see them.

  He wasn’t any more religious or observant than Mum, but he felt guiltier about it.

  Or just guilty, I suppose. Mum seemed to embrace plainspoken agnosticism with a sense of relief.

  Reading Chavi’s words, I can sort of remember the man who came up to us, because he asked us if we were sisters. I was sitting in her lap, and even back then, when I was a too-skinny almost-twelve-year-old waiting for my weight to catch up with my growth spurt, it was just a stupid question. Sure, Chavi was darker than me, but I was still spectrums browner than any of our very white neighbors.

  He seemed sad. I couldn’t put my finger on why I thought that, not even when Chavi asked me later, but I remember that. He just seemed sad, even though he was smiling at us.

  Chavi mentions him again a week later, after our monthly Sister Day breakfast at the diner. We went to the cinema after that—Saturday mornings, they’d play black-and-white classics on the big screens—and she went to get candy while I was in the restroom. She seemed flustered, but when I asked her about it, she said a jerk from one of her classes asked for her number.

  That isn’t what she wrote, though. She’d noticed what I hadn’t, that someone had followed us from the diner. When I was in the bathroom, she lit into him for being creepy, told him she’d call the manager and the cops if he didn’t leave us the hell alone.

  He thanked her.

  She writes that she was confused as shit by it, but he thanked her for being such a good sister and then left the cinema.

  She doesn’t mention him again.

  A week later, she was dead.

  Dammit. I can’t remember anything else about him. Just that he was sad and had a sister. I know I didn’t write about him; for a while after Chavi died, I escaped into compulsively reading my last weeks with her. I still reread that journal more than any other.

  “Priya!” Mum yells up the stairs. “Archer’s here!”

  He’d probably just gotten to Denver when we texted Finney, and he had to turn around and drive all the way back.

  When I get downstairs, he’s on the step with the tissue-wrapped stalks of hyacinth. He glances up at me with a grimace. “Sterling says to let her know if I make you uncomfortable, and she’ll do something painful to me the next time we spar in the gym.”

  “I like Sterling.”

  “I’m sorry I made that kind of protection necessary.”

  “Why did you?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately, still crouching down to take pictures of the untouched flowers. “The FBI uses cold cases in academy training to teach us that we can’t solve every case,” he says finally. “It’s supposed to teach us pragmatism.”

  “What did it teach you instead?”

  “You know, I honestly used to think that cases only went unsolved because investigators got lazy.” He transfers the flowers to an evidence bag, then seals and signs it. When he straightens, he leans against the wall like he’s settling in for conversation. “I was an idiot, and arrogant. My academy friends and I used to brag that we’d have flawless case records.”

  “Then you learned that life is messy?”

  “I grew up black in small-town South Carolina, where my high school mascot was a Confederate general; I thought I knew all there was about life being messy. People look at me now with a suit and a badge and think I don’t belong.”

  “And you want to prove them wrong.”

  “I do. But . . . I can’t use other people to do it. And seeing the strai
n you’re under . . . I was incredibly stupid to suggest you should make yourself bait. I was ignorant and out of line, and I sincerely apologize.”

  “Accepted.”

  He blinks at me.

  “If you really want to grovel, I can hand you over to Mum; she’s much better at demanding that sort of thing.”

  Chuckling, Archer peels off the neoprene gloves and shoves them in his pocket. “You really are something.”

  After he leaves, I text Sterling. No need for unmanning; he even made a very good apology.

  Good, I get back, but I’ll probably try anyway. Really make the lesson stick.

  When the shipping container is finally in place, Mum heads up to Denver to put a few hours into the office. The move is less than three weeks away, so they’re piling a lot of work on her to make sure she’s ready. To do my part in making sure I’m ready for the move, I settle in with the schoolwork that it was too loud to do this morning.

  Around four, there’s a knock on the door.

  I freeze, staring down the hall at the door like if I just look hard enough, I can see through it. I almost call out “Who is it?” but don’t.

  Easing off the couch, I reach for Chavi’s softball bat, which now lives in whatever room I’m spending time in. We had to pack the knives. The bat is heavy and solid, the grip comfortingly rough in my hands.

  “Miss Priya?” a male voice calls. “Miss Priya, you home?”

  Is that . . . is that Officer Clare?

  I switch my screen over to the camera feed, and yes, that’s Officer Clare standing on the porch, his hat in hand. His voice is unmistakably Texas. With absolutely no intention of answering him, I take the time to study him. He’s probably in his forties, his face worn but otherwise unremarkable. I try to place it against my admittedly spotty memory of the cops around Chavi’s murder.

  He looks vaguely familiar, but not in any meaningful way. He’s not overwhelmingly bland like Landon is—was—he just doesn’t spark specific recognition.

  “If you’re home, Miss Priya,” he calls through the door, “I just swung by to apologize for the other day. I’ll try you another time.”