“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, squeezing 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.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Mum’s silent for a long time. Then she gets off the couch, pulls me up after her, and hugs me so hard we’re rocking in place just to keep breathing. “I am never going to make that decision for you. You are my daughter, and I will always be your sounding board and give you advice, but I can’t just tell you what to do. Not like that. You are your own person, and you have to make the choice you can live with.”
“I think we need to know exactly what this is before we decide. There’s too many other things the flowers could be.”
“Then we’ll wait.” She kisses my cheek, almost by my ear. “We’ll gather all the information we can, and make a decision then.”
There are all kinds of stalkers; the fact that I’m sort of hoping this is a murderous one disturbs me in ways I can’t even name.
He can feel Vic’s eyes on him, heavy and concerned and thoughtful and just a little bit amused. No matter how grave the situation, Vic always seems to be entertained by Eddison’s pacing.
But then, Vic’s never seen himself go completely still when an important piece of information shifts into place, or almost does. Vic goes still, Eddison paces.
Ramirez taps her pen against the table in a frantic tattoo that starts pounding directly into his goddamn brain.
He pivots a little too hard when he reaches the wall, sees Ramirez cringe and carefully set her pen down beside her legal pad. Later, he’ll feel bad about whatever expression he must be wearing. He might even apologize. For now, he’s just grateful that the sound has stopped.
They’re all up in the conference room, waiting to hear back from the Denver office. Eddison is still in the sweat-stained tee and track pants, his windbreaker thrown over the back of a chair. Vic is in jeans, more casual than usual, but traded out his paint-spattered flannel for a clean polo within minutes of arriving at the office. Ramirez . . .
Hell, he’ll really feel bad for her later, because she was very clearly on a date, even if it was the middle of the afternoon when Vic called her. She must have curled her hair, because he can see the natural wave fighting against the neat spirals, and she’s wearing a dress and the spiky kind of heels she doesn’t ever wear to the office even if it’s just supposed to be a paperwork-and-phone kind of day. She hasn’t complained, though, hasn’t made a single mention of having to ditch her date in the middle for what may be Eddison overreacting.
Please let him be overreacting.
The phone console in the middle of the table rings shrilly, and Vic leans over to stab at the speaker button. “Hanoverian.”
“Vic, it’s Finney. They’re okay. Little shaken, maybe a little pissed if I was reading it right, but okay.”
All three let out a breath. Of course they’re okay. It isn’t a threat yet, just the possibility of one.
And it is not at all surprising that, having had time to think on it, one or both of the Sravasti women might be pissed.
“What’s it looking like?” Vic asks a moment later. He’s the one who actually knows Finney, who is, in fact, his former partner. Eddison hadn’t realized it, but as soon as the Sravastis knew they were relocating to Huntington, Vic had briefed Takashi Finnegan on the case, just so there’d be someone close enough to help if it came down to it.
Clearly, neither of them expected it to come down to it.
“The card is clean for prints. Same with the outside of the tissue paper,” the other agent reports. “Now that it’s to the lab, they’ll unwrap it and check more. The flowers could have come from anywhere, unfortunately: florist, grocery store, private greenhouse, different city, who knows. Check your email for a picture of her journals.”
Ramirez reaches out to spin her laptop around toward Vic so he can sign in. Eddison stalks around the table to lean over. “Holy shit, she wasn’t kidding,” he mutters once the picture loads.
He’s pretty sure he’s never seen so many composition books in one place in his life.
“Those are just hers,” Finney says, and even Vic chokes a little on that one. “They’ve got the sister’s stacked off to the side.”
“So you don’t have the list of other flowers she received,” Vic surmises.
“No, but she’s getting the journals in order. Not even sure how. Every notebook looks different, and no labels I saw. No dates, either, except for the beginning of each year.”
“Not each notebook?”
“Each year.”
“Can we set up a camera for their front door?” Ramirez asks. Her fingers touch the pen, but then she looks at Eddison and puts her hand in her lap.
“Ms. Sravasti is going to put in a request. Her company owns the house and makes it available as a short-term residence, so she has to get permission to make changes. In the meantime, there is a basic windows-and-door alarm system in place, and they’ll start using that.”
“Start?” Vic echoes with a frown.
“It’s a low-crime area; most folks feel safe enough with just locks. One of my agents commutes from Huntington; I’ll have him introduce himself to the Sravastis and check in on them. If they get approval for the camera, he can help them install it.”