14
Vic insists on all of us joining the family for dinner, and I both get it and am grateful for it, and with all three of his daughters home for the evening for once, the house is full of noise and laughter. No one mentions the case, or how no one can decide if I should go home or not. Holly and Brittany, the older two girls, are full of stories from college, their classes and campus life and competitions. Both are on athletics scholarships, Holly for cross-country and Brittany for swimming. Janey is still in high school, but she regales us with tales from rehearsals for her summer shows, and Vic is so proud of all three of them he can hardly see straight.
As agents, we’re trained to recognize the elephant in the room, to approach it somehow, but tonight it is merrily ignored.
I’m back at Eddison’s for the nights, though Sterling mentioned kidnapping me next week in some sort of bizarre joint-custody arrangement. While I get changed into T-shirt and boxers—and it’s even my “Female Body Inspector” running shirt, just to make him laugh—Eddison fiddles with his laptop and the cables until he’s got Skype up on his massive television, Inara and Priya sprawled across the screen.
“Victoria-Bliss is at work,” Inara offers instead of hello.
“Looks like you two are, as well,” I reply, accepting the bottle of beer Eddison hands me and sinking down onto the couch.
They both shrug, but they also both look a little proud. “The literary agent I’m interning with has me reading queries and submissions,” Inara says. “She makes all the decisions, of course, but she wants to know my opinion on them, and then shares her process. It’s interesting.”
Priya fans a stack of photos in such a way that we can only see corners, nothing of the subjects of the pictures. “Looking at layouts.”
“School project or your personal project?” Eddison asks.
“Personal.”
“That we still don’t get to see?”
“You’ll see it eventually.” Priya grins at him, sharp and familiar, and I can actually see Eddison debating whether or not he really wants to know. Inara sees it, too, and buries her face in the quilt to stifle her laughter. “So what’s up? There’s not a good game on, and just about anything else could be done through text or phone call. You guys okay?”
“Wanted to update you guys on what’s happening down here,” Eddison says, and both girls nod, blink, and focus on me.
Our team doesn’t adopt many kids the way we did these two and Victoria-Bliss, but I’m always glad we’ve got them. Almost always glad we’ve got them—being the sole focus of their considerable attention and powers of observation is a little like settling into the confessional at church.
Despite it being mostly my story, Eddison is the one who tells them about the newest deliveries—that they happened, anyway, without sharing details—and about Siobhan. Inara nods along absently, but Priya’s eyes narrow when Eddison gets to the breakup. Then again, Priya never actually liked Siobhan. Didn’t care about her one way or the other as a human being, just didn’t like that we were dating. Once, and only once, she told me why: she didn’t like that I seemed only half myself with Siobhan. And in the beauty of hindsight, she was absolutely right.
But she’s also the first one to ask, “Are you okay?”
“For now,” I tell her. “I guess I’m still waiting for it all to weigh in.”
“But you’re going to be okay?”
“Yes.”
She starts to say something, then shakes her head. “It’s okay if you’re not, you know. For a while.”
Inara snorts along with Eddison, and it’s been a long time since either of them have looked horrified to agree with each other. How many times have we told Priya—and Inara, for that matter—that it’s okay not to be okay?
“Speaking of not okay,” Inara starts with a frown, “have you heard from Ravenna since she visited you? She still isn’t answering her phone, and hasn’t responded to the email.”
“She hasn’t called, no. Is there a specific reason you’re more worried than usual?”
Inara blushes, honest-to-God blushes, and looks down at the quilt. Somehow, despite everything, she didn’t lose the ability to care for people, but she can still get embarrassed by someone pointing it out. Much like Eddison, in fact. “If you were going to rank the surviving Butterflies by most likely to snap and murder someone, Victoria-Bliss is, no contest, number one, and I’m a close second.”
Eddison and Priya both nod.
“Ravenna is an easy third.”
I set my beer on the coffee table with a thunk. “Really? She said she’s been doing better, at least until that last fight.”
“Yes and no. Separating Ravenna and Patrice-the-senator’s-daughter, or just figuring out how they exist together, isn’t going to happen around her mother or the constant publicity.”
“Mum offered her the guest room,” Priya adds. “Paris might give her enough distance to start truly working through it, and she’d have a safe place to stay with people who care about her, and a steady link to Inara.”
Inara’s blush, which had been fading, returns full force, as it always does when someone reminds her that she’s basically the Butterfly housemother, even still.
“I’ll let you know if she contacts me,” I promise.
We catch up for a bit, telling the stories that don’t translate well across texts. A little after midnight, my personal phone rings.
I don’t recognize the number.
At almost any other time, I’d let it go to voice mail, but this month has seen a rather spectacular set of circumstances, hasn’t it? Eddison goes very still beside me, and the girls follow suit, their faces blurred a bit by the crappy webcam and the giant screen.
On the third ring, I accept the call. “Ramirez.”
“Ramirez, this is Dru Simpkins.”
Shit.
I thumb it over to speakerphone. “Simpkins, I’ve got Eddison here with me. What’s up?”
There’s no comment on Eddison and I being together at midnight. Half the Bureau thinks we’re fucking, the other half thinks we haven’t realized yet how much we should be fucking.
“Just got a call from Detective Holmes,” the woman answers. “A seven-year-old boy named Mason Jeffers was dropped off outside the emergency room entrance of Prince William Hospital. He was covered in blood, none of it seems to be his. He hasn’t spoken, but he’s got a note safety pinned to his teddy bear that gives his name, age, and address, and says to ask for you.”
“And his parents?”
“Holmes wants you out at the boy’s house. I’ll allow it this time.”
This time. Simpkins is already on a roll. “What’s the address?”
Eddison scrambles for a pen, finds a Sharpie, and writes the address out on his forearm for lack of accessible paper. “We’ll be there in twenty,” he promises, and Simpkins acknowledges before hanging up.
Inara and Priya watch us gravely as we lever up from the leather couch. “Be safe,” Priya charges us. “Let us know what you can.”
“Do we need to cancel our trip down this weekend?” asks Inara.
“Don’t cancel the trip,” Eddison says. “Marlene stocked the freezers. You are not allowed to leave us with that many pastries.”
“Well . . . we board the train at six o’clock Thursday afternoon, so if things change, that’s the point of no return.”
Eddison shakes his head, reaching for the laptop to shut it down. “Only you think six o’clock is afternoon.”
“You think six o’clock is morning,” she retorts.
“It is morning.”
“Not if you haven’t gone to bed yet.”
“Good night, girls.”
“Good night, Charlie,” they chorus, and grin at his pained look. Just before the screen goes dark, I can see the worried looks they flash to me.
“I’ll call Sterling while I’m changing,” I tell Eddison. “You’ll call Vic?”