The Collector (8 page)

But what his partner said was true. The stone in the bird’s mouth, the fact that she knew it changed color, the painting in the foyer. And now, the cause of death.
She didn’t die like you think
…It was a little close to the mark.

Walking to the vehicle, he could still see Gia clearly in his head. He had a good memory for things like that, but this was different. He pictured her eyes, so blue in contrast to her sleek black hair. How alluring she looked in just a plain T-shirt and jeans. During the interview, she’d seemed almost resigned to the fact that no one would believe her. She was doing her duty, coming forward like a good psychic citizen…knowing all along she’d be ridiculed. He remembered how badly he’d wanted to tell her she was wrong, that no matter what, he’d give her a fair shot.

He opened the car door and sat down on the hot passenger seat, waiting for Erika to start the engine. He just couldn’t imagine Gia involved in the bloodbath he’d seen…and maybe not for the reasons he’d given Erika.

Because Seven had another reaction to Gia Moon. One he hoped his partner hadn’t tuned in to with her Latina sixth sense.

He told himself he was vulnerable. Hell, the last few months, he didn’t know where his head was at—that night with Erika being a prime example of his lack of judgment.

And that call from his ex, Laurin. The breakup of his marriage hadn’t exactly been a high point. Talking to Laurin only reminded him of past mistakes. Big ones.

He hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t noticed the changes in Laurin. And maybe that’s why she left. He’d made her feel invisible, when another man made her feel loved.

She’d left a note:
I don’t love you anymore, Seven
.

Short and sweet.

Maybe that’s when he’d felt the big slap across the face. That call from Laurin about her shiny new life. And here he was, stuck in a spot where time stood still, because his brother had changed the rules.

Bad guy—good guy. Seven couldn’t tell anymore.

“Look, the case is bizarre enough,” he told his partner as they made their way down Bolsa Avenue. “Let’s just play this one straight, okay? Cross our t’s and dot our i’s.”

“Oh, sure. Sit around and wait for a suspect to fall into our laps? Or, God forbid, wait for someone else to die.” She kept her eyes on the road. “Come on, you haven’t thought about it? The whole serial killer scenario?”

Like his partner, he stared straight ahead, watching Little Saigon pass in a wash of color. Red-tiled roofs, Vietnamese signs, painted shop windows in strip malls advertising supermarkets, nail salons and gift stores. A rice rocket—a Honda Civic tricked up with fancy spoiler and audio equipment—cruised past.

A serial killer. Of course he’d thought about it. Everything about the death of Mimi Tran evoked the possibility of a twisted mind.

“I’m betting our little Miss Moon knows more than she’s letting on,” Erika said. “Like that stuff about checking private collections and museums. She gave me an idea.”

“Museums?” He shook his head. “I’m moving around the rabbit ears, Erika, but I’m still not getting any reception.”

“Meaning,” she said, “we need to do a little research. You in for a drive, partner?”

This, as she flipped on the turn signal and headed for the on-ramp for the 22 Freeway.

He was thinking,
Like I have a choice?

He said, “Lead on, Drummer.”

I
n the opinion of David Gospel, there was nothing worse than an ungrateful child.

You could put your kid in the best schools, read all the right books, make sure he had the very best of anything and everything. And still he turned rotten, like bad fruit.

The best part? It was all Daddy’s fault. You hit him, you didn’t hit him. Too lenient, too strict. You didn’t spend enough time with little Johnny or maybe you were too controlling. Poor Johnny was overscheduled.

You criticize any tiny thing he does—a story he wrote, or a stick-figure drawing—and you’re accused of ruining the poor little shit’s self-esteem.

Whatever happened to resilience? Sure, David came from money, but his father had made damn sure his kids couldn’t touch a dime until they earned their own fortune. And Jesus, the crap the old man said to him? Nothing was ever good enough, right?

That’s how you motivate a man. You let him know he needs to do better. Be better. You push.

You didn’t get more if you didn’t ask for it.

The day Owen was born, David started his grand plan. His boy—his firstborn son—was going to have a leg up on the poor muttons of this world. Sure as hell, he’d be better off than his father. That’s the way it was supposed to go. Each generation helped the next achieve greater success. That’s how you built a dynasty.

Thousands of dollars in therapy later, they’d told him he’d raised a monster. There were no more therapy sessions, no more pills. Just something spoiled and depraved.

He’d tried everything, even an exorcism, for Christ’s sake—Meredith’s idea. Owen was sick and Christ would save him.

It had been both repulsive and beautiful, the exorcism, reminding David of the early years when he’d been active in secret societies—the reenactments in particular. When Owen was old enough, eight or nine, David had even taken him along, still maintaining hope for his ambitions for his son. There’d been a moment during the exorcism ceremony with the priest when Owen had turned to look straight at David, as if remembering their special times together.

He could still hear the strange music of his son’s screams and the soft chorus of the priest’s murmured prayers during the exorcism. He’d watched as Owen pulled out fistfuls of hair and clawed at his eyes until he’d had to be restrained. The boy had panted for breath like a creature giving birth, and when the final crisis came, he’d arched his back at an impossbile anlge to howl at the ceiling. The sight had been exquisite, so lovely, in fact, that for one instant, the doubts had come: That beauty, the perfection of the moment, could it be an act?

David recalled Meredith, with tears streaming down her face, holding Owen afterward, saying her baby had been saved.

And Owen did seem different. Enough that David had eventually bought in to Meredith’s “Jesus Saves!” theory.

Just in case, he’d sent Owen away for missionary work. For five years, Owen helped build schoolhouses in Kenya, taught English in the Amazon jungle and traveled up and down the Ganges. He’d gone to places like Darfur, lawless places where people died of hunger in the street or were shot. Why not give the kid a little perspective? Let him see how the other half lives?

Rocket had been his insurance. And now it was Rocket’s job to fix whatever he’d fucked up.

David looked at Meredith seated across the room, her skinny elbows digging into the custom-made Mitchell Gold couch. Meredith had picked out each and every item in the house with an interior decorator. That queer had practically cost David his left nut, he’d been so expensive.

Meredith didn’t believe in anything ostentatious—not anymore. She’d give every fucking penny he earned away if she could.

But David didn’t see any reason to change just because God apparently saved his kid. He wasn’t building his kingdom in some make-believe heaven. With interests throughout Orange County, he’d made damn sure his charitable donations worked for him. Like now, with Condum-Cox. His campaign contributions to the current mayor were about to pay off, big time.

And this house…It was one of thirty-two exclusive homes on Bay Island, right down the street from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans’s old place. Not to mention what was once the John Wayne estate. David Gospel could afford the best.

He’d never believed that the-meek-shall-inherit-the-earth crap of his wife’s. If David believed in a god, it was himself. He had the power.

At first, it was all about the money. Hell, why not? Money was an easy way to keep score. And he’d enjoyed the gauntlet his father had thrown down to his three sons. Be better….

Only, as it turned out, the money thing hadn’t been much of a challenge. David’s marriage had given him money to play with. Soon enough, he’d moved into politics. Not as a candidate, no way. Who the hell wanted some asshole looking into his tax returns? He was the puppeteer, pulling the strings behind the screen.

The amazing part? That, too, hadn’t taken long to conquer. The whole thing turned into just another rubber-chicken dinner, with some blowhard sucking up the oxygen in the room.

That’s when David started his collection.

He’d learned pretty early on he had the power to make and break lives. The people who worked for him owed him their livelihood, and they were fucking grateful for it.

So why stop there? Why limit his goals to the here and now? There was power to be found beyond what the sheep on this earth coveted. He just had to know who to pay to get it.

He’d started by looking into secret sects—Freemasons, Rosicrucians—and for a while, he’d gotten off on the lure of being one of the chosen, an initiate in a secret society. But theirs was not the kind of enlightenment David sought. Fuck universal peace or cosmic consciousness.

He began looking into more obscure sects, surprised at the number of powerful men willing to put on costumes and parade around, reenacting rituals from ancient Babylon and Egypt.

But then David began to realize it was more than the illusion of supernatural powers that he coveted. He needed something more solid, a physical
object
of power.

He started reading about psychic archeology, a branch of anthropology that used the paranormal to uncover ancient sites of archaeological importance. The more he learned about the discipline, the more David started to think,
What about the artifacts themselves?
Certainly, there must be objects of power that had survived through the ages, buried somewhere for him and his considerable resources to find.

Sure, he’d hit a hiccup or two along the way—Owen being his number one pain in the ass. But it wasn’t supposed to be easy. Look at the search for the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. If it was easy, every sorry ass out there would have what he had.

He looked again at his wife. There she sat, her bony butt swallowed by that sofa. She hadn’t moved since he’d told her he’d called Rocket, those bug eyes of hers just staring at him.

Watching her now, he thought about all those nature versus nurture arguments. Maybe the only thing wrong with Owen was a case of bad genes.

He heard the doorbell and Maribel, their housekeeper, answering the door. Meredith turned anxiously toward the entrance, twisting her wedding band round and round on her ring finger.

If Owen looked like his mother, it was as if someone had taken a dim bulb and turned up the wattage. Shit, the kid could have been a model, he was that handsome. Tall, with blue eyes and sandy blond hair. David remembered Meredith having eyes like that once. Now her eyes were a flat, dead blue.

Owen had been born with this condition. His eyes just didn’t blink. Something about the muscles of the upper lids being weak. The condition had been mild enough that they’d gotten away with cosmetic surgery when Owen was just five. There’d been a few follow-up surgeries, as well.

Owen had to wear sunglasses all the time, even indoors. And he put drops in his eyes. David thought it gave his eyes a special gleam.

Entering the room, Owen tossed his coat on the settee. He flopped onto the cushions and rested the heels of his Esquivel ankle boots on the armrest. Owen had good taste in clothes, leaning toward the more cutting-edge designers. He had the build for it.

“I bought the most amazing piece of art today.” He glanced over at Rocket, who stopped near the door. “I don’t think Rocket approves. And Mom will have a seizure if she sees it.”

He held his finger up to his lips and winked at his father.

David could feel his stomach turn. The kid looked so fucking normal….

He’d had a couple of drinks earlier, thinking to relax a little, maybe simmer down before Rocket hauled Owen in. It hadn’t worked.

Slowly, his son’s smile faded. Those pretty blue eyes narrowed, giving Owen the look of someone searching for the nearest exit.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

David still had the newspaper on the coffee table, turned to the article about Mimi. With just the slightest tilt of his chin, he pointed out the
Register.

Owen stared at the headline for a minute, looking almost perplexed. David knew the exact moment his son realized where the conversation was headed.

“You can’t think—”

“Don’t be an ass, Owen. Of course that’s what I think! What else, for Christ’s sake!”

Owen jumped to his feet. For an instant, he looked as if he might actually try to run for it. Instead, he began pacing across the room. He raked his fingers through those platinum highlights. “So every time a body shows up around town, you’re going to point the finger at me?”

Rocket made himself scarce, not one to linger in these types of situations.

“I think the connection is a little tighter than that, Owen. Mimi Tran was a psychic in my employ. Just like Michelle—”

“Jesus Christ, are you kidding?” Suddenly, Owen was bent over, laughing. “Another one of your psychics, Pops?”

Owen’s expression turned feral as he walked over to David. The younger man placed a hand on each side of the armchair, leaning menacingly over his father.

“Do you know how stupid you sound sometimes?
I have magic objects that make me all-powerful, all-knowing
.” His tone was a solid imitation of David’s deeper voice. “You can hire a fleet of psychics and you’re never going to be God, old man.”

“Don’t push me,” David warned.

Owen narrowed his eyes, making them look almost colorless in the room’s dim lighting. “Who really believes that shit, Daddy dearest? Not anyone with half a brain. But you,
you
travel around the world, buying your
collection
.” He leaned closer, saying in a stage whisper, “You know something, Pops? I think even Rocket knows you’re a fucking head case.”

David smiled up at his son. He could feel those martinis pumping inside him.

He exploded out of the chair, taking Owen with him. He had him on the ground, pinned by the throat, before the kid even knew what hit him.

“You’re calling
me
a head case?” he asked in a cool voice. “You killed Michelle. And now Mimi’s dead.”

Owen flailed his arms and legs, trying to dislodge him. But David had a good twenty pounds of muscle on his pretty-boy son. He tightened his grip.

“What happened with Michelle was different and you know it!” Owen managed to spit out.

“You slit her throat! You drank her blood!”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“I know what you are, Owen!”

Before David could do any more damage, Rocket pulled him off. Meredith knelt down beside Owen, propping up her son. David shoved Rocket away, ready to take another shot, but Meredith held up her hand.

“Stop it, David. You’re drunk!”

Her voice, her tone. The world seemed to spin. He remembered Michelle’s sweet face—and his son sitting at the spa just outside, licking the blood off his hands.

David had always wondered if he’d done the right thing, covering up for Owen. He’d owed Michelle better. But he’d been afraid.

He walked over to his son, now cradled in his mother’s arms.
He’s a monster…a freak,
a voice inside David’s head whispered. He crouched down and looked into his son’s eyes, searching for the truth, believing in his heart he would know somehow if Owen was playing him.

Michelle was different….

Incredibly so, David thought. Unlike Mimi Tran, who’d been in her sixties, Michelle had been only twenty-three. Still, she was a powerful clairvoyant. He’d been seeing her for almost a year before things crossed the line from professional to personal.

That day in the backyard, an eighteen-year-old Owen had confessed everything to David. Glassy-eyed and crying, he’d told his father it had all been a terrible mistake, Michelle’s death. They’d been having an affair behind David’s back. Only, Michelle had suddenly gotten cold feet. She wanted out…and she’d threatened to tell David.

That’s when it happened. He’d pushed her up against the counter. He hadn’t seen the wineglass there….

There’d been blood everywhere. She’d severed her carotid artery on the broken glass when he’d pushed her against the counter.

One minute, I was kissing her…sort of forcing her, you know? Because I loved her and couldn’t think that she wouldn’t want
me anymore. Then she started making this gurgling sound in her throat. That’s when I saw the blood.