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

  “Remind me why I’m doing this?” she asks, voice muffled by her scarf.

  “Because it was your idea?”

  “Well that’s stupid. You know better, why didn’t you stop me?”

  “If I know better, why do I do this multiple times a week?”

  “Fair point. We’re both idiots.” She dances in place as we wait for the crosswalk to flash go, making me sway with her. “I miss green things, Priya-love.”

  “I offered to get you a plant.”

  “If it’s made of fabric or plastic, it isn’t a plant.” She looks down at her heavy gloves and sighs. “I need dirt under my nails again.”

  “We’ll stock up on seeds for France.” On second thought . . . “After we check and make sure we’re legally able to carry seeds into foreign countries.”

  “That’s a silly law.”

  “Invasive species, Mum. It’s a very real problem.”

  “Marigolds are a problem?”

  “Marigolds are always a problem.”

  We stop at the grassy island in the middle of the parking lot. The pavilion is still there, one side rolled up and lashed. Probably so horny teens and twenty-somethings can’t crawl under and make use of privacy. The space heaters are gone, though, and the little generator they all plug in to. It’s a Sunday afternoon, so none of the vets are there.

  “You sit out here in this weather?” Mum asks incredulously. “You don’t even like getting dressed.”

  “Pajamas are clothes.”

  “For going out of the house?”

  “Well, no, but that’s not about the clothing, that’s about the people.”

  “Oh, my dear antisocial girl.”

  “I’m not antisocial; I’m anti-stupid.”

  “Same thing.”

  “How are you in Human Resources?”

  “I lie well.”

  I don’t tell Mum stories about chess because at her most supportive, she has exactly zero interest in the game. I keep her updated when and where I’m going, and that’s about the extent of that topic of conversation.

  I have told her about Landon, given that he’s still following me into Starbucks. Not out of it, at least, which is something. I suspect she told Eddison about Landon, because I got a text asking if blue is actually my favorite color or if I simply felt it was representative, which would normally be weird except that it was followed by him making sure I was still right-handed. I told him sunshine yellow, not because it is, but because I’d really love to see him try to find a bright yellow Taser.

  “I think my nipples are about to freeze off.”

  Snickering, I pull Mum down the grass and aim us at the storefronts. “Come on, then. Food.”

  After lunch, we head over to Kroger to pick up a few things. She’s considering making a treat to take into the office for her minions, which is fine so long as it’s nothing that requires the oven, mixing bowls, measuring cups, or tins.

  Chavi and I were always close with Mum. There was a line there, firmly drawn, between friend and Mum, and if a situation ever neared the line, she was always going to come down on the Mum side. But up until that line, she could be—and was, and is—both. After Chavi, or maybe more importantly after Dad, the line shifted a little bit. It’s still there, still as firmly drawn and nonnegotiable as ever, but there’s a lot more territory where she’s as much friend and sister and instigator. I don’t think Vic believes me half the time when I swear my mother is the biggest reason I get in trouble at school. He likes to say it’s her influence, not her.

  I know better. At least seven times out of ten, it is literally my mother at the school, raising hell. I’m usually willing to let insults slide; Mum isn’t, especially if the insults come from teachers.

  But at the end of the day, one of my absolute favorite things about Mum is—

  “Two ladies as beautiful as you should be smiling!”

  “A man as interfering as you should go fuck himself!”

  —she doesn’t tolerate bullshit. Not from anybody else, and not from herself. It’s not about being an asshole, though she can be if she thinks it’s the right response, but about being honest.

  Mum is the biggest reason I can say I’m broken, and the reason I know that’s okay.

  We pick up Oreos, sugar, cream cheese, chocolate chips, heavy cream, and parchment paper, then decide okay, we can buy one new mixing bowl without feeling stupid for not digging out our own, and then compromise further and pick out an enormous popcorn bowl with a lines-and-dots color scheme designed by someone who was clearly tripping. It is the ugliest goddamn bowl we have ever owned, and I’m including the handmade day-camp ceramics in there.

  It is kind of amazing.

  We get more milk, too, even though we’re going to regret it as soon as we start walking.

  Mum complains the entire way home, putting the whine in her voice that always reduces me to giggles and coming up with more and more ridiculous things to say. I think I was eight the first time she did that, when we were at a restaurant and listening to a monstrous little darling having a meltdown. Dad made some comment about the girl’s parents needing to exhibit better control of her, and Mum went to town with the fake whines, until Dad finally gave up and ordered a drink.

  Their marriage didn’t always work, but even when it did, it was always a mystery as to how.

  The mailbox—because neither of us felt like going out to check it yesterday—is mostly junk, but it has a large envelope of paperwork from the school I’ll be attending in Paris, plus a normal-size envelope from Inara. I shove that one into my pocket to read later. I haven’t mentioned the letters to Mum yet, because she would probably tell Eddison, and that would give him a solid shove in the direction of a breakdown.

  When he said a couple of Butterflies would destroy the world rather than be destroyed, I’m comfortable assuming Inara is one of them.

  “Priya, look.”

  Mum and I both stop short on our walk up, staring at the front step. There’s a bouquet of jonquils there, wrapped in spring-green tissue. They’re a mix of types, some of them yellow straight through, others yellow-throated with white petals like a fan behind. They’re tied with a bit of white curling ribbon near the base, a looser sheer white ribbon in a large bow up where the bouquet gains some width. There looks to be a half-dozen stalks, but multiple blooms add some size.

  It’s not the first time flowers have just shown up at our door. After Chavi died, our step used to be full of them. Everybody brought flowers and food. As if we could ever eat that much food before it went bad. Most of the flowers we just threw out, because even with the few we kept, the scents got so heavy and they clashed and it got hard to breathe. Harder. It was always hard to breathe, those first few weeks. The perfumed air made it worse.

  It’s been about a year, though. The last time we got surprise flowers, it was in Omaha, and someone in Mum’s office there found out about Chavi. That person was very quickly dissuaded from discussing it with anyone, least of all me or Mum. But the only person here I’ve told is Gunny, and he doesn’t have my address. Wouldn’t send flowers anyway, I don’t think. Before that was . . . San Diego. There were jonquils then, too.

  “Mum, wait.”

  She pauses in reaching forward for it, her eyebrows lifting when I pull my phone out of my pocket. “Seriously?”

  “Humor me.”

  She rocks back on her feet, making a go-ahead motion with the bag of milk.

  The groceries get carefully placed on the walk. I drag off one of my gloves so I can take several pictures before crouching down next to the bouquet. There’s a card threaded between some of the stems. Almost a card; it’s nothing more than a small sort-of rectangle of white card stock, poorly cut. I yank it out with my hand still gloved. All it says is Priya. The ink is bright blue. The handwriting doesn’t look familiar, but it’s indented slightly into the card stock and has the kind of glisten I usually associate with cheap pens, the kind you get three bucks a dozen on the expectation
that they’ll be lost or stolen.

  There’s no delivery tag. When florists deliver flowers, there’s some kind of card or tag from the florist with the delivery instructions. That’s how we identified the sender in Omaha.

  I take some more pictures, holding the card in front of the bouquet, then scoop up the flowers and groceries. Mum still looks bemused until we get to the kitchen and I can show her the card.

  Then her face goes very still, everything tucked away until she decides what she thinks about it. “So he’s here.”

  “Maybe,” I murmur. “We’ve gotten jonquils before.”

  “Yes, in San Diego,” she replies, one eyebrow tilted. “I’m sure you remember what else happened in San Diego.”

  I give her a nasty look.

  She just shrugs. Mum saves tact for work, and even then only when she absolutely has to. She doesn’t much bother with it in her personal life.

  “We got them in Boston, too,” I remind her. “Once Chavi was connected to the other cases, we got a slew of the earlier flowers.”

  “So you think it’s a murder groupie.”

  “I think we have to concede the possibility.”

  She frowns at the flowers as I dump them, wrapping and all, into the sink. “Do we tell the Quantico Three?”

  “Is there something to tell them yet?” I rub my thumb along the edge of the phone, trying to think my way through the options. Just like in chess, you can’t think only of the move you’re making. You have to think three, five, eight moves ahead, to place each play within the context of the full game. “We don’t know that it means anything.”

  “Could it be Landon?”

  “Maybe? I guess the jonquils could be a coincidence.”

  “That would stretch the definition, wouldn’t it?”

  “Your daughter was murdered by a serial killer less than a mile from home.”

  “Point,” she sighs. She starts putting away groceries, giving herself the chance to think. Mum is nearly never without something to say, but if she has the chance to consider things first, she’ll always take it. “Tell Eddison,” she says when everything is either put away or stacked next to the stove for us to use. “Stalker or killer, the FBI will have to get involved anyway. If they’re here from the beginning, so much the better.”

  I lean into her, using her shoulder as a pillow, and wait.

  “If it is him,” she says, “if he really has found you again . . . it’s one thing to leave it unresolved when it’s out of our hands.”

  “What makes you think it’s in our hands now?”

  “I don’t think it is, yet, but if it is him, this is our chance. We’re more likely to succeed if the Bureau’s in the loop. Partial loop,” she corrects herself. “I’m quite sure they don’t need to know everything.”

  That’s because Mum’s idea of resolution is seeing the bastard who killed Chavi dead at her feet. Mine usually involves hearing you’re under arrest, followed by a recitation of Miranda rights.

  Usually.

  A certain awareness of the other cases was inescapable, partly due to the questions the FBI asked us about Chavi and partly because the media seemed to insist we had to know. For a while, we didn’t want to know more.

  Then San Diego happened.

  I supposed we could have maintained ignorance, but at that point, it seemed not just stupid but actively harmful. So Mum and I researched the other murders, painstakingly sorting out what was true from the theories of the armchair detectives or fans.

  It wasn’t that we were hiding what we’d learned from our agents; it was more that . . . well. They’ve always been so careful in their questioning not to give us the weight of those other deaths. Chavi was ours to carry, but it’s so easy in a serial case to feel like you have to hold the entire string of victims to your heart. It’s easy to feel guilty for the deaths that happen after your loved one’s—we got cards from the families of Zoraida Bourret, Mandy Perkins, and Kiersten Knowles when Chavi’s murder hit the national news—and there’s this sense, irrational but strong, of Why couldn’t I provide the information to catch him? It’s not so much What did I do that my daughter/sister got murdered for it? as it is What did I do wrong that he wasn’t stopped?

  Guilt doesn’t have to make sense; it just is.

  I carry the names of those other victims, but it’s not from guilt. From sorrow, usually, and from rage. Our agents tried to protect us from the extra wounds that come with serial cases, but it isn’t their fault we’re broken people who don’t always react the way we’re expected to.

  “How are you going to play it?” Mum asks.

  “It doesn’t really matter what kind of flower it is; the fact that whoever delivered them knows where we live is problematic.”

  “So you’re telling the truth. Novel way to go about it.”

  Only Mum would consider sharing a fraction of the available information to be telling the truth.

  I pull up the clearest of the photos, with both the flowers and the card, and text it to Eddison along with These were at the door when we got home from errands.

  When there’s no immediate response, Mum and I both go get changed and come back to the kitchen to start the Oreo truffles. About an hour later, as we’re on the couch waiting for things to chill enough for the next step, my special Eddison-only ringtone goes off. “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett; it felt appropriate.

  “Hey.”

  “Are those jonquils?” he asks, sounding out of breath.

  With a glance at Mum, I put the phone on speaker. “Yes, yes they are. Is that important?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re panting.”

  “I was out running. Has anyone sent you jonquils before?”

  He’s got the Agent tone in his voice, the one that says to let him ask his questions before I try to get clarification. I don’t always like that tone, but I get why it’s important.

  “San Diego and Boston.”

  “Did you get any other flowers in San Diego?”

  Mum and I trade looks. “Yes. I can’t recall what they were, though.”

  Mum’s eyebrows inch toward her hairline, but she doesn’t contradict me. I’ve never outright lied to Eddison before; I don’t think I like it.

  “Would you have written about it to Chavi?”

  “Yes, but I’d have to dig through the journals to find which one they’re in.”

  “When you get a chance, do that, please. And there was no delivery tag?”

  “Just the bit of card stock. I still had my glove on,” I add.

  “I’m going to send someone out from the Denver office to pick the flowers up, just in case. You didn’t throw them out, right?”

  “No, they’re in the sink.”

  “Is the sink wet?”

  Mum snorts. “Please. Like we do dishes.”

  There’s a short pause that I think is Eddison trying to decide whether or not he should respond to that. He doesn’t; it’s probably the right choice. “How long do you think it would take you to find the right journal?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve got boxes and boxes of journals, and they’re not in any sort of order.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Chavi and I read back through them from time to time, so they got put back very haphazardly. There were some we liked to keep closer than others. I still do.”

  Bless his compulsive heart, I think I just broke him, if the very long silence is any indication. I’ve seen his desk—seen Mercedes’s and Vic’s desks, too—and while the boxes may not be quite the breed of hell that Mercedes engenders, it must be close. “Try to find it quickly,” he says finally. “If you can send a list of the flowers you received before back with the agent, that would be helpful. Otherwise just get it to me as soon as you can.”

  “Going to tell us what this is now?”

  “Five years ago, you said you didn’t want to know about the other cases. Still true?”

  Mum’s hand wraps around my ankle, s
queezing a little too hard. I don’t tell her to let go.

  I’m not sure why I’m hesitating, except that I’m worried telling him a little bit may translate to telling him everything, and there are things he really doesn’t need to know. There are things Mum and I need to figure out, plans we need to make, and we thought we’d have more time.

  We expected something to happen—maybe hoped for it—but we didn’t expect it to be this soon after we moved.

  “Let me talk to Vic,” Eddison says when I’ve been silent for a little too long. “He needs to know about this new development anyway. You think about it, tell me when you’re ready. If you decide you want to know, we’re doing this in person. Nonnegotiable.”

  “Understood,” I whisper, playing up the scared little girl I should be. Would be, maybe, if I were a little smarter.

  “As soon as I have the name of the agent they’re sending out, I’ll text it to you. Make them show their credentials. And find that journal.”

  “We thought it was a boy in San Diego,” I tell him, hating how small my voice sounds. “I was tutoring someone, and he had a bit of a crush, and we thought he was being creepy-sweet. He said he wasn’t, but we didn’t think it could be anyone else, and they stopped when we moved. We didn’t think it was important, or connected, or—”

  “Priya, I’m not accusing you of anything.” His voice is soft, gentle in a way he swears he’s not capable of being. “You didn’t have any reason to know it could be something. But I am very glad you told me about this. I need to call Vic and the Denver office. I’m going to text you that name, okay? And I’ll call you later tonight?”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  The call ends, and for a while, Mum and I stay on the couch, staring at the phone, Leonardo DiCaprio drowning in the background movie. Then Mum shakes her head, hair sliding out of her loose braid to frame her face. “It’s just about time to make a decision, Priya-love. In the meantime, let’s haul those boxes down and start getting them organized. They’ll need the dates of delivery, at the very least, if they don’t just ask for copies of the entries.”