Outside, they walk down the driveway to a little playground. The benches there have seen any number of impromptu conferences or post-case wind-downs. Vic sits heavily, looking older than he is, while Ramirez perches atop the back and stretches her legs along the length of the bench. They don’t bother leaving room for Eddison; he almost never sits during serious conversation if pacing is an option.
Vic reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Not a word to my wife or ma,” he warns them, and holds it out.
Eddison takes one immediately. Ramirez shakes her head.
“Your gal in Counterterrorism not like the taste?” Eddison asks her.
“She has a name, you know.”
“Now where would the fun be in that?”
She takes a cigarette before Vic can put the pack away.
“Mrs. Carmichael was devastated,” Vic tells them, releasing a long, thin plume of smoke. “The last time she heard from her son was when he drove away a few months after his sister’s death. At first she was in hysterics, but once she calmed down . . .”
“She started to reframe how she saw him,” Ramirez finishes for him.
Vic nods. “He’d always been very protective of Darla Jean, she said. A very attentive older brother. He didn’t like boys paying attention to her, or her paying attention to boys. Didn’t like it when she dressed certain ways, or said certain things. Looking back, Mrs. Carmichael thought he was more physically affectionate than most brothers, but she was so glad they weren’t fighting she didn’t think too much of it.”
“So Darla Jean kissed a boy in a church,” says Ramirez, “a flower on her dress, and her brother saw. Felt betrayed?”
“Rapes her, kills her, runs back home before anyone can find her. Rural Texas, I bet most of the men know how to hunt. Any number of them have knives like his,” Eddison continues.
“He doesn’t run right away, not until the investigation’s stalled. Not until his leaving won’t be suspicious. And it’s a small town, he’s a smart young man, grieving his sister, is it really a surprise that he doesn’t come back?”
“And everyone pities Mrs. Carmichael, to lose both her children so close to each other.” Eddison flicks the ash onto a bare patch of soil, stepping on it just to be sure. “No one thinks twice about Jameson, so he becomes Joshua.”
“He goes somewhere else, can’t settle without Darla Jean, moves on again. He sees Zoraida. Everything a sister should be.”
“He remembers Darla Jean was a ‘good’ sister, a good girl, until that boy, and he resolves to protect Zoraida from the same fate. Kills her to keep her innocent, but treats her gently.”
“But every spring, he remembers Darla Jean, and when he sees the combination of pretty girl, church, and flowers, it triggers him. He stalks them to see if they’re his definition of good or not.”
“I hope you both realize that neither of you is ever getting promoted as long as you finish each other’s thoughts,” Vic points out. He stubs out the remains of his cigarette against the bottom of his shoe, then peels the paper away from the filter and drops both pieces back into the pack.
Ramirez hands him her cigarette to finish. “He learns Priya is in San Diego because of a photo contest; we found the magazine at his apartment. Priya, fifteen, San Diego. He takes it on faith, goes after her.”
“But he finds her just before she leaves, and he has to look for her all over again. It takes him a while, but then Deshani’s profile runs in the Economist, and she mentions that she and Priya are moving to Huntington. He decides to get there first.”
“And the rest is history.”
There’s a question—a thought, maybe, or a possibility—that hangs heavy between them. Eddison remembers that feeling coming back from Denver the first time, that itching sense of something being out of place about the Sravastis’ reactions. He snorts softly. “We’re not saying it, are we?”
“No,” Vic answers immediately. Firmly.
“Should we be?” Ramirez asks.
There isn’t an easy answer to that, and they all know it. There’s the law, their oaths to the FBI. There’s the much murkier territory of right and wrong.
But there’s also Priya, the laughing girl she used to be, and Deshani, too strong to stumble even if it kills her. There are all those other girls.
Eddison’s never been sure what he thinks of the afterlife, if there are lost souls waiting for answers before they can move forward to the light or heaven or whatever. There are too many lost souls still living. But however much he wants to deny it, there’s a part of him that will always tell the dead to rest in peace when they solve a murder. As if the knowing can give them that misty satisfaction and let them move on.
From Darla Jean Carmichael to Julie McCarthy, are those girls able to rest now?
And he thinks of Faith. Always, forever, of Faith. If he ever finds the bastard who took her . . .
“Priya’s more her mother’s daughter than ever,” he says finally.
“Once we get the new round of lab reports, Finney and I are both recommending the case be officially closed,” Vic tells them. “Priya Sravasti is a victim of Bureau ineptitude. An overeager agent charged with her protection used her as bait because the section chief was more concerned with politics than with the facts of the case. Section Chief Ward will face a full internal investigation regarding her actions.”
“And that’s an end to it?” Ramirez asks.
“Are you okay with that?”
She looks off into the stretch of trees that backs the playground, running along in a thick strip between this row of houses and the ones behind them. She hates the woods, and it took almost two years and a night of far too much tequila for her to tell them why. Vic might have already known, actually, if he had access to her background, but he’d never made mention of it if he had. Most of her nightmares were born in the woods, something that may never leave her.
It’s never stopped her from running straight into the trees if there’s a chance in hell the kid they’re looking for is alive in there.
“Yes,” she says eventually, drawing out the word. “I suppose I am.”
Because there’s the law, and there’s justice, and they’re not always the same thing.
The night before Mum and I leave the country, the Hanoverian living room is full of laughter and arguments and noise. So much noise, and it’s amazing, the vitality of it. Vic is thoroughly outnumbered by his mother, wife, and three daughters, and because Inara and Bliss are in the room, Eddison stays on the opposite side of it and doesn’t even try to help his senior partner. Mercedes just teases both men.
It’s home, and family, and all kinds of wonderful things.
Eventually, though, everyone heads to bed, Marlene and Jenny kissing everyone on foreheads or cheeks. They get Eddison’s cheeks at the same time from either side, and doesn’t that just make him squirm?
The picture is wonderful. Inara and Bliss both promptly ask me to text it to them. So do Vic and Mercedes, when Eddison can’t see them.
I have a feeling Mercedes will be putting it on her desk at work at some point, just to fuck with him.
Mum shoos me upstairs, where we’re sharing Brittany’s room, but she stays in the living room with the adults and I know it’ll be a while before she’s up. So I head into Holly’s room with Inara and Bliss.
They came down a few days ago from New York, with a detour to Sharpsburg to check on the youngest Garden survivor. The best part of meeting them may have been watching Eddison try not to crawl out of his skin. He kept hovering in the doorway of whatever room we were in, clearly torn between wanting to run the hell away and wanting to make sure we don’t accidentally take over the world.
I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t be an accident if we did.