The Summer Children

The third book in the Collector series, the novel is narrated in first person by Mercedes Ramirez, an FBI agent in the Crimes Against Children (CAC) division. Mercedes lives alone in a quiet cottage on the outskirts of Manassas, Virginia, a home she regards as her private sanctuary. Her relationship with Siobhan Ryan, a translator in the Bureau's Counterterrorism division, has been strained for months because Siobhan refuses to hear about Mercedes's work or the realities of child abuse.

Returning home late one night with Siobhan, Mercedes discovers a blood-covered boy on her front porch clutching a white teddy bear with crinkly gold wings and a halo. The child, Ronnie Wilkins, says an "angel" killed his parents and brought him here because Mercedes would keep him safe. Mercedes calls her partner and field leader, Brandon Eddison, and Detective Holmes of the Manassas Police arrives with paramedics. Siobhan, shaken and furious, leaves. At the Wilkins house, the crime scene reveals extreme violence: Daniel Wilkins was subdued with gunshots, then both parents were stabbed dozens of times. The scene is clean and efficient, suggesting careful planning. Ronnie's Child Protective Services (CPS) file, reviewed by the team, including junior partner Eliza Sterling and unit chief Vic Hanoverian, shows the boy was removed from his home four times for physical abuse and returned each time due to procedural failures.

Interludes written as dark fairy tales punctuate the narrative. Narrated in third person about a "little girl" afraid of the dark, these passages gradually reveal a childhood of escalating abuse: a father who beat, sexually assaulted, and eventually prostituted his daughter to friends who called her "angel." The interludes trace the girl through foster care and a new name before a devastating prison visit triggers her descent into violence.

Nine days later, Mercedes and Sterling return from a night out to find three more blood-streaked children on the porch: 12-year-old Sarah Carter, her sister Ashley, and their five-year-old half-brother Sammy Wong, each holding identical angel bears. Sarah reveals the killer woke them after murdering their parents and made them listen for heartbeats to confirm the deaths. Sarah eventually confesses that her stepfather molested her for years while she stayed silent to protect Ashley. The crime scene confirms the abuse: Wong's groin area is heavily stabbed, and hidden cameras are found in Sarah's room. At the hospital, Mercedes accompanies Sarah through a pelvic exam, sharing that she had her own first exam at a younger age for the same reason.

The time between attacks shortens. Five days later, 13-year-old Emilia Anders arrives at Mercedes's door, dropped nearby by the killer. Unlike previous children, Emilia fought back and was struck on the head. A security camera captures the killer's dark SUV and white mask with curled blonde hair, different from the straight wig described earlier, confirming multiple disguises. That same night, Siobhan is in Mercedes's bedroom following a last, ill-advised reunion. After the incident, Siobhan departs. Mercedes eventually reveals she spent eight years in foster care and asks Siobhan to accept her fully or end the relationship. A box of Mercedes's belongings soon appears on her desk, confirming the breakup.

Agent Dern of Internal Affairs removes Mercedes from active duty, explaining that defense attorneys could exploit her connection to the case. Dern assigns her to write a training manual for new CAC agents and to review her old case files for any child who might have grown up to become the killer. Agent Simpkins initially leads the FBI team paired with the Manassas police, but her abrasive management leads to her removal; veteran Agent Watts takes over.

The attacks accelerate. Seven-year-old Mason Jeffers is left at a hospital with a note pinned to his bear because he is nonverbal; the crime scene reveals his mother was the abuser, with stab wounds clustered at her groin and breasts. Mercedes theorizes the killer must have access to CPS files to know the nature of each family's abuse. Next, three siblings, twins Brayden and Caleb and their sister Zoe, arrive at a fire station after their parents' meth lab explodes. All three have severe drug exposure from years in the contaminated house. Zoe dies of a seizure-induced stroke, Caleb of organ failure, and only Brayden survives. Then 11-year-old Noah Hakken is delivered to a police station after his mother's murder, but his bruises are from gymnastics training, not abuse: The killer has now murdered an innocent parent, confirming she is making fatal errors. In a seventh attack, 12-year-old Ava Levine is found outside a hospital with two angel bears, one for her and one for her unborn baby. Ava is approximately 18 weeks pregnant by her own father, at her mother's instigation, and is so thoroughly manipulated she does not understand that what happened to her is a crime.

Meanwhile, Mercedes's estranged biological family intrudes. Her imprisoned father has pancreatic cancer and the family wants to petition for his release. Mercedes refuses and confronts her mother, Margarita Ramirez, at a hotel. She later reveals her full history to Sterling: her father molested her from age five, then gave her to gamblers to settle a debt when she was eight. She was held captive in a cabin for two years until Vic, then a field agent, raided it and carried her out. The scars on her cheek are from a broken bottle used by her captors. Vic became the reason she joined the FBI.

The investigation narrows when digital forensics reveal someone has been using senior file clerk Gloria Hess's CPS login on her chemotherapy days to access victims' files. One Stafford County address is searched almost daily, and Mercedes connects it to a nine-year-old case: 14-year-old Cara Ehret, whose father beat, raped, and prostituted her until Mercedes's team rescued her. Cara called Mercedes a guardian angel. The case breaks open: Cara became Caroline Tillerman, the cheerful file clerk Mercedes met at the CPS office. Officers find masks, white jumpsuits, blonde wigs, and angel teddy bears at her apartment. Cass Kearney, Mercedes's academy friend now on Watts's team, reports that Cara's father recently summoned her to prison to gloat that his new wife is expecting a baby girl, the trigger for her killing spree.

Before officers locate Cara, Emilia Anders calls Mercedes in a panic: the killer is at her uncle Lincoln's house in Chantilly. Over the phone, Mercedes hears gunshots. Lincoln's girlfriend and Emilia are killed. The killer, audibly unraveling, screams that Emilia was supposed to be safe.

Cara retreats to her childhood home in Stafford, now occupied by the Douglass family, where she shoots the father and takes nine-year-old Nichelle into the woods. Mercedes follows a hand-drawn map to a dilapidated tree house where Cara holds Nichelle at gunpoint. Mercedes talks to Cara by her childhood name, acknowledging her pain and urging her to release the girl. When a police helicopter startles Cara, she shoots Eddison in the thigh. Mercedes fires a single fatal shot. Nichelle is returned safely to her mother, and Marines evacuate Eddison by helicopter. Kneeling beside Cara's body, Mercedes opens a heart-shaped locket and finds a photo of teenage Cara on one side and a newspaper cutout of Mercedes's face with a gold-ink halo on the other.

In the aftermath, Mercedes surrenders her badge for the mandatory Internal Affairs review. Eddison undergoes surgery; his femur is broken but his prognosis is good. During the proceedings, Priya Sravasti, a young woman Mercedes and Eddison adopted as family after Priya's sister was murdered, presents Mercedes with a scrapbook of children from her decade of cases, each pictured with the teddy bear Mercedes gave them during their rescue. Agent Dern clears Mercedes for active duty. The novel ends with Dern asking if Mercedes has made her decision. Mercedes says she has, without revealing the answer. A final interlude, strongly implying Mercedes's own voice, resolves the question: She acknowledges that the fear of hurting others makes her a better agent, that there will be children she fails alongside those she saves, and that she chooses this path, and would choose it again.