Settling into a chair near the bed, Cass’s eyebrows climb toward her hairline, but she doesn’t say anything.
“And like I said, Ashley really liked Samuel. If she had to listen to our grandparents bad-mouthing him, I think she’d run away. And, well, Sammy.” She sniffs back tears, and it breaks my heart to see her working so hard to look strong. I already know she’s strong; I know what she’s survived. “What did you do?”
Cass shifts in her chair. She knows I’ve got a personal reason for being in CAC, it’s the kind of thing that gets around, but I’ve never told her what that personal thing is.
“I was the only one taken away,” I tell Sarah softly, “and my extended family was never really an option. It’s different for you.”
“The doctors said I’m clean,” Sarah says abruptly. “That’s like health-class stuff, right? Like diseases?”
“Diseases, and making sure you weren’t pregnant.”
“What if I had been? Pregnant, I mean.”
“It would depend a lot on how far along you were, if it was posing risks to your health, who got custody of you. There’s not really one straight path there. Did they say how you’re healing?”
“I have an infection, but they said it’s a really common one. An, um . . . a youtee?”
“UTI. It means urinary tract infection, and yes, it’s really common for women for all sorts of reasons. Fortunately those don’t have long-lasting effects and they’re pretty easy to treat.”
“They won’t let me put sugar in the cranberry juice.”
“Yeah, that is pretty gross, isn’t it?”
We stay for a little bit longer, but I don’t think she’s lying when she says she’s okay for now. Ashley isn’t back yet when we leave; that may be for the best. If she’s as angry as Sarah says, she’s probably pissed at me too. It’s not entirely logical, but anger and grief and trauma so rarely are.
“I always forget,” says Cass as we head to Emilia’s room.
“Forget what?”
“How honest you are with victims.”
“Kids,” I correct. “I’m honest with kids, and I think everybody should be.”
“No Santa Claus for you?”
“That’s different. Santa Claus isn’t asking them to trust him.”
We announce ourselves at Emilia’s room, and she calls out for us to enter. She’s pacing in front of the long window, one arm up in a sling. I introduce her to Cass, just like I did for Sarah, and ask her how she’s doing.
She snorts and looks down at the sling. “I don’t want to wear this, but they said I have to.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They said my shoulder’s dislocated and, um, my collarbone is cracked. Said they have been for a while, so they want me to wear this for a few weeks. Let everything ‘heal properly.’”
“Why does the sling bother you?”
“It . . . it . . .”
“Emilia, there’s no wrong answer here as long as it’s an honest one.”
“It looks like I’m begging for attention,” she admits, slumping down on the end of the bed. “Or showing people the easiest place to hurt me.”
“They found somewhere for you to go, didn’t they?”
Both she and Cass look startled. “How did you know? Oh,” she continues quickly. “Of course they told you.”
“They haven’t, but you wouldn’t worry about looking injured as long as you’re in a hospital. It’s kind of what it’s for.”
“She used to do this in the academy, too,” Cass fake-whispers to Emilia, who actually giggles.
Running her fingers along the sling’s strap, Emilia adjusts it away from the small square bandage that covers the cigarette burn. “My dad has a cousin in Chantilly.”
“Were your dad and his cousin close?”
“Yeah, it’s like twenty minutes away, they said.”
Cass grins. “I meant were they friends?”
“Oh. They’d get together to watch games, sometimes, but not really. I’ve met him, though. Before, too, and he came yesterday to ask me if I’d be okay with living with him. He seems nice.”
“Well, that’s a plus, isn’t it?”
“I’ll have to change schools. But . . .” Emilia looks between us and takes a deep breath. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing? I mean, no one in Chantilly would know about my parents being murdered, right? They won’t know I was bad?”
“You were not bad,” Cass and I say in unison, that startled look jumping back into Emilia’s eyes.
I reach out and touch her knee with the back of my hand. “Emilia, I promise you, none of this happened because you were bad. Your dad lied to you for a very long time, and maybe he lied to himself. Maybe he convinced himself you were bad so he wouldn’t feel guilty for hurting you. But you weren’t. I promise you, you weren’t.”
“Lincoln, Dad’s cousin, wants me to go to therapy.”
“I think that could be a big help.”
“Dad always said therapy was for sickos and wimps.”
“Your dad was wrong about a lot of things.”
She looks like she needs to chew on that thought for a bit, so we say goodbye, and remind her she can call Cass for anything she needs, even if it’s just to talk. Closing the door, we hear a sharp “There you are!” and flinch.
It’s not Simpkins, though. It’s Nancy, the social worker.
“Sorry,” she huffs, jogging down the hall. “Didn’t mean to sound pissed off, I just didn’t want you to walk away. One of the nurses said you were here.”
“Just checking up on the kids,” I tell her.
“What would you think about meeting Mason?”
Um. “Is he going to be okay with that? Us being female and all?”
“Keep a good distance from him and he seems to listen calmly enough. And he’s started communicating with us, a little.”
“He’s talking?”
“Writing, but to be honest, I consider that amazing.”
“Nancy, have you met Cass Kearney? She’s on Agent Simpkins’s team.”
Nancy holds out her hand, and she and Cass shake briskly, exchanging good-to-meet-yous. “Mason read the note last night, and I think he wants to know who you are, Mercedes. I don’t know if meeting you will help him or not, but I don’t think it’ll hurt him. Tate agrees.”
“Tate is another social worker?”
“He is; he’s been in with Mason all day.” Nancy leads us down the hall to another room, knocking on the door with a “Tate, it’s Nancy. I’ve got a couple of agents with me.”
“Come on in,” calls a warm male voice.
“Rule of the room,” whispers Nancy as she turns the handle. “No women past the track of the privacy curtain. He seems to do okay with that amount of space.”
Seven-year-old Mason Jeffers sits on a beanbag on the floor in the far corner of the room. A few feet away, a very tall, lean black man sits on the floor as well, long legs stretched out in front of him. Mason’s socked feet rest on Tate’s legs, just below the knee. Mason’s shoulders hunch when he sees us, fear jumping into his eyes, but otherwise he doesn’t move, just watches us with his hands around what I’d guess is Tate’s iPad.
He’s too thin, almost to the point of sickly, but otherwise he looks physically unharmed. I know that’s not the case, especially not with what Cass told me in the car, but even with that visible fear, he’s unnervingly calm.
“Mason, these are the agents Nancy and I were telling you about,” Tate informs the little boy. “That’s Mercedes Ramirez”—I give Mason a nod and a little wave—“and this is . . .”
“Cass Kearney,” she says, echoing my gestures.
“This is Mason Jeffers.”
Eyeing the curtain tracking in the ceiling, I sit down on the floor against the same wall as Tate, making sure not even a hair is over the line. It puts me about ten feet away, with Tate in between us. “You’ve had a pretty bad morning, huh?”
He nods solemnly.
“This might be a pretty difficult question to answer, but are you doing okay right now?”
He seems to think about that, then shrugs.
“Okay, let’s try something easier: As long as we stay over here, are you okay with us being in here with you?”
He frowns a little, then shrugs again.