Inara and Victoria-Bliss we met during what may be our most infamous case. Certainly it was one of the most bizarre. They were among the many girls kidnapped by a man over three decades and kept in the Garden, a massive greenhouse on his private land, some of whom he killed to preserve their beauty. Tattooed with intricate butterfly wings, the Butterflies were his prized collection, in both life and death. After the Garden, with the wounds still fresh and the trials looming, Vic connected them to Priya. The three became fast friends, and whenever Priya was back in the States, she managed to spend at least a few days in New York in the warehouse apartment they had shared with half a dozen other girls.
They have their own place now, the massive bed covered in a quilt made of Shakespeare lithographs. Neither of them are in black, the color the Gardener gave them, neither of them have their backs bared the way he insisted was necessary. Victoria-Bliss is, in fact, in an eye-smarting shade of orange even brighter than a traffic cone, both front and back emblazoned with the name of the animal shelter she volunteers at. It’s healthy, and it’s good, and it’s wonderful to see the three of them so close. And possibly a little terrifying; they’re indomitable young women, and could probably take over the world if they were so inclined.
“How are the pictures going?” Eddison asks during a commercial break.
“Going well,” Priya answers. “Next week or two, I’ll head down to Baltimore to talk to Keely’s parents. They want to see some of the finished photos before they and Keely decide whether or not to participate in the project.”
“Think they will?”
Priya’s knee gently nudges Inara’s hip, and the other girl looks up from her tablet, pen bouncing against the pad beside it. Inara shrugs at the webcam. “I think they will,” she says. Keely is the youngest of the Garden survivors, brought in only in the Garden’s last days, and Inara has always watched out for her very closely. “We’ve talked to them about it several times since Priya and I came up with it, making sure they know it’s not prurient or sensational, that it really is about healing. I don’t blame them for wanting reassurance.”
“Speaking of others.” Victoria-Bliss frowns down at her fingers, streaked with cranberry-colored castoff from her clay. “It’s been a few weeks since any of us have heard from Ravenna. Pretty much since we did the photo session with her. She and her mother got in a huge fight about it and now no one knows where she is.”
Her mother, Senator Kingsley, can’t understand why her daughter still struggles to separate Ravenna, the Butterfly in the Garden, from Patrice, the politician’s perfect daughter. It’s precisely because of the senator that the young woman is having such difficulty. As public and newsworthy as the discovery of the Garden and the subsequent trials were, the senator’s position means her daughter’s attempts at recovery have been scrutinized. How is anyone supposed to heal like that?
“She came to see me,” I tell them, and Victoria-Bliss’s frown clears. Except for Inara and Victoria-Bliss, who got adopted by the team in general, I’m the one still in touch with most of the Butterflies. I was the one in the hospital with them, the one who initiated most of the contact for interviews. “She stayed with me a couple nights and then continued on to a family friend while she gets her head on straight from the fight with her mother. I don’t have a name or location, but if you send an email and tell her you’re concerned, I’m sure she’ll respond eventually.”
Inara nods absently, probably already composing the message in her head.
“She said it helped,” I add. “Whatever you guys are doing, she said it really helped.”
All three girls smile.
“So when do we get to see the photos?” asks Eddison.
“When I decide to let you,” Priya tells him dryly. Behind her, Victoria-Bliss snickers into a handful of polymer clay she’s softening. Priya scowls suddenly, brows crinkling in toward the blue crystal and silver bindi. “The fuck was that, Fouquette? The ball decides to float majestically into your glove and you drop it?”
“He needs to be traded to an American League team,” Eddison says. “Let him be a designated hitter for some idiot pitcher, and get him the hell out of the outfield.”
“Or send him back to the minors to get some basic skills.”
“I don’t know,” Victoria-Bliss drawls, and Eddison braces himself. “I kind of like the chants of ‘fuck-it, fuck-it’ because of all the dumb asses who can’t manage his name. I mean, the networks have to blur the sound of the crowd, that’s kind of amazing.”
Eddison grimaces, but doesn’t argue.
I’m not sure what it says about us that this is our normal.
On Monday, I text Siobhan an invite for coffee before work—even if that means dragging my sorry ass to Quantico much earlier than usual—and get back a frankly snippy instruction to let her decide when she’s ready to talk to me again. When the mothers said relationships take effort, I don’t think they intended me to run straight at brick walls. Tuesday afternoon I leave work early, driving my car for the first time in nearly a week, to meet Detective Holmes at my house. She’s sitting on the front step waiting for me when I get there. All the crime scene tape is gone, and someone even went to the trouble to clean the blood off the porch swing.
“We’re nowhere,” she greets me grumpily. I drop my messenger bag and the go bag desperately in need of replenishment on the swing and sit next to her. “We have nothing to go on.”
“How is Ronnie doing?”
“The doctors didn’t find any signs of sexual abuse. Physically, he’ll heal pretty quickly. God bless his grandmother, she’s already got him connected with a therapist. Without going into details, obviously, the therapist says Ronnie doesn’t seem ready to talk yet, but he’s apparently willing to listen. Long road ahead of him.”
“So he hasn’t said anything about the angel?”
“Female, taller than him but not as tall as his dad. Dressed all in white. Couldn’t really tell us anything about her voice. He said her hair was blonde and in a long braid. He said he held on to it while she was carrying him.”
“Police sketch?”
“A white mask. He couldn’t give particulars.” She sighs and leans against the post that ends the railing. The circles under her eyes are deeper than they were on Thursday. “Have you ever given any thought to putting up cameras?”
“Sterling’s going to help,” I answer. “One aimed on the porch steps and swing, and one on the mailbox to see the car. Hopefully.”
“Good.” She hands me the ring of keys I gave the uniformed officer. “There’s been no sign of anyone coming back. Your immediate neighbor was a bit disgruntled he wasn’t allowed to work on the lawn.”
“Jason likes green things. I’ll talk to him.”
“The case we worked two years ago, you gave teddy bears to every kid we talked to. Is that SOP for your team?”
Nodding, I lean forward to brace my elbows against my knees. “Vic and his first partner Finney started it. I took it over after I joined the team. The bears are pretty cheap, plain, come in huge boxes with an assortment of colors. We give them to victims and young siblings, friends, if we talk to other kids. It’s comforting, calming, helps them settle into an interview.”
“And your collection?”
“Started when I was ten. I’d do odd jobs to earn money for them, and as long as they could all fit in a bag with my clothes, I could keep them with me when I was moved to a new foster home.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “Were you ever adopted?”
“No. I was in the last home for a little over four years, and I’m still in touch with the mothers. They offered, but . . .” I shake my head. “I wasn’t ready to have family again.”
“Well, there’s no reason not to let you come home. We’ve got a patrol coming through a couple times a night. If you get a case out of town, will you let me know?”
“Absolutely. For right now, we’ve got a conference out in California that we’re leaving for Thursday morning. We’ll be back sometime on Sunday.” Crap. Sunday. It was supposed to be a very big day for Sterling, but will likely be a painful one instead. Eddison and I need to think of something good to do for her. “It’ll be next week before we get the cameras up.”