The Collector (23 page)

She shut the door before he could respond.

Gia collapsed to the entry floor. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Once again, her daughter watched from the doorway. She’d crossed her arms over her chest and held one hip jutting out. She didn’t look at all pleased by the prospect.

“Yes,” Gia told her. “I like him.”

She hid enough from her daughter. She didn’t need to keep such a trivial secret. Nor would it do her any good to even try. Once Stella had a bead on a particular emotion, holding out only made her dig in.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Gia said, referring to Stella’s interruption in the studio.

Her daughter turned toward the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “I was trying to do my homework, but you were giving me a headache. By the way, I’m making us spaghetti for dinner.”

And there was the problem. Stella was too in tune with her mother. Emotions like the ones Gia was fighting with Seven being the worst kind to try and hide.

Gia followed her into the kitchen. She had been hoping to give herself more time with her daughter, but now she understood she’d waited too long already.

The spirit was closer. Stalking her. And despite any hedging on her part to Seven, Gia knew the killer. She wasn’t waiting for him to arrive on her doorstep.

Time to find Stella a safe place.

S
even had taken Nick to Steve’s Burgers on Warner, one of those burger joints, inevitably run by a Greek, where the food was piled high and served with a smile. They’d both indulged in pastrami sandwiches and chocolate shakes. He’d asked Nick about school and basketball, anything but the obvious—how his mother was doing. How Nick felt about his father.

Seven told himself Nick needed time to just be a kid, to forget all the darkness that was going on in his life. But he wondered if maybe it wasn’t only his nephew who needed the break.

And it worked—at least for the span of a dinner. They tried to outdo each other on knock-knock jokes, and had a fry-eating contest. They even played thumb wars. Seven was pretty ruthless, never “letting” Nick win. Because it didn’t matter. It was the good old days. Just he and Nick having a good time.

But driving back to the house, he could see Nick sinking into the passenger seat. They both knew what was waiting for them at home.

The minute they stepped inside Ricky’s minimansion, with its perfect view of the main channel, they heard Beth crying upstairs.

Without batting an eye, Seven asked, “How’s the homework situation?”

“I’m on it.”

On his way to his room, Nick stopped to stare up the steps toward his mother’s bedroom. The look on his nephew’s face…suddenly, that kid seemed a hundred years old.

Seven knew what lay ahead—a night of hand-holding. But now he wondered how many nights it was Nick who had held his mother’s hand when Seven wasn’t here to take on the load.

After he’d set Nick up with his math, frankly amazed the kid was doing pre-algebra—
algebra,
for cripe’s sake—Seven walked up the stairs.

Beth had been drinking heavily, an empty bottle of some pricey chardonnay stood on the nightstand next to a Waterford goblet. He remembered shopping for his brother’s wedding. Beth had registered at Nieman Marcus. A set of her china cost almost a week’s salary.

He sat down on the bed next to her. He picked up the bottle of Xanax, the tranquilizer her doctor had prescribed.

“Hey,” he said, brushing her hair from her face. “I don’t think the pills mix with the booze. You want to end up in the hospital? You think Nick can handle that?”

She bit her lip, the tears still coming. “I know, I
know.
” She looked up at him, shaking her head. “Don’t make me feel worse. I
try,
Seven. It’s just…shit. I had a really bad day.”

“Beth, you need to call me when you’re like this.”

“You’re here now.” She snuggled up to him, putting her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest. “That’s all that matters.”

He rubbed her arm, feeling the weight of that burden. “Help me here, Beth. I have Ricky and Nick to think about. I can’t worry about you, too.”

She nodded, brushing away her tears. “I see a therapist. I’m
trying.
What more can I do, Seven?”

He remembered being jealous once, of Ricky and his perfect wife and family. The pride he’d brought to Seven’s parents. They loved to talk about Ricky’s newest accomplishments, the practice he’d opened in Newport Beach, his stock portfolio, the fifty-five-foot yacht. The private schools and sailing lessons for Nick.

But now, Seven couldn’t help but make the comparison. Gia and that painting—her daughter and her fierce expression. The two of them stood against the world, propping each other up. No way Gia would let her kid down like this.

But he told himself he didn’t know their story. Maybe it was just harder, falling from Beth’s great heights.

He looked back at the bottle of wine next to the prescription medicine. “You’re going to have to stop, Beth. If you need help, I can take care of Nick. Maybe you could go somewhere. A clinic, you know?”

She shook her head. “He’s all I have, Seven. I can’t. I just can’t.” She looked up at him, biting her lip. “I won’t let him down. I swear to God I won’t. Not after everything that’s happened.” She nodded, as if she was making a pact with herself. “Tomorrow, I start getting sober. No more trying to stay numb.” She looked up again, her pale blue eyes weepy and needy. “But tonight, can you just hold me? Until I fall asleep?”

“Sure.”

And why not? He’d done it before. Many times.

“He was never around,” she said, her voice heavy with the meds and alcohol. “I thought it was the job. He was such a gifted surgeon. I didn’t know he didn’t love me anymore…if he ever did. I was so stupid.”

“How could loving anyone be stupid?” he asked.

For a while, they didn’t speak. He just held her, stroking her hair, waiting for her breathing to grow deep and rhythmic with sleep.

“Do you ever miss it?” she asked after a while. “Being married?”

He sighed, thinking about Laurin. They’d had a tumultuous relationship. She’d thought she was pregnant and they’d jumped the gun. It hadn’t lasted. Big surprise.

“I got married too young and for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t ever going to work out.”

“I miss it,” she said, nuzzling closer. “A lot. I didn’t know how much I loved being married. I was someone’s wife and mother. Did you know I was running for PTA president when he killed Scott?”

“Hey. This wasn’t your fault. Ricky made some bad choices, not you, okay?”

“I wonder sometimes,” she whispered. “Maybe if I’d been prettier…smarter. Better.”

“That’s a bunch of crap.”

“Really?” She looked up at him. “My husband left me for a man.”

“What Ricky did was a huge betrayal,” Seven told her, suddenly finding himself having the conversation he’d planned for Nick. “He betrayed you and his family. How is that your fault?”

The tears spilled. “Why didn’t I know, Seven? How could I have missed the signs?”

“Come on, Beth. I’m a homicide detective and I didn’t know there was anything wrong.”

“I lived with him. I
slept
with him.” She reached up and touched Seven’s face. “You hate it, that I’m weak.”

“That’s the booze talking.”

She bit her lip again, looking entirely too vulnerable. “Maybe it wasn’t just Ricky who made some bad choices.”

She was delivering the message loud and clear:
Did I pick the wrong brother?

“I’m not such a prince,” Seven told her.

“From where I’m sitting, you’re looking pretty good.”

Shit,
he thought, remembering everything Erika had told him.

He pulled away gently. “Promise me something? You get sober, and then we’ll talk, okay?”

She saw the rejection in his eyes. She rolled into a little ball on the bed. “Oh, God.”

Again, that image of Gia flooded his mind. He couldn’t imagine her falling apart like this. And that kid of hers, the two of them were like a mother lion and cub.

“Come on, Beth. What’s Nick going to think if you and I can’t keep it together? I’m his uncle—all he has besides his grandparents to make up for that image of his dad in an orange suit with his hands cuffed. He needs me…he needs you. What he doesn’t need is us screwing that up, okay?”

She rubbed the tears from her eyes, sitting up. He could see she liked the idea that his rejection was something practical rather than personal.

“You’re right, of course. I don’t want to be that kind of mother—I don’t want to be
this
kind of a mother,” she added angrily. She shook her head, looking more sober. “I’ll talk to my counselor.” She brushed away her tears. “Maybe I do need to get away.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Your parents already offered. But you’ll check in on him, won’t you?”

“God, Beth. You don’t even have to ask. You know how much you and Nick mean to me.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I do, Seven. I really do.”

He gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

He waited until he knew she’d fallen asleep. He checked on his nephew. Nick, too, was tucked into bed, homework finished and at the ready on his desk.

Seven locked the front door on his way out. He told himself they’d work it out. He had his parents to help out. No matter what, Beth and Nick were family.

Only, once he sat inside that quiet, empty car, all that emotion he’d kept in check exploded. It was like one of those laws of physics: nature abhors a vacuum or something. The anger he felt transformed him. He wasn’t thinking about his brother or Beth or even Nick. Instead, all that emotion boiling inside focused in a different direction.

Your partner has a private investigator following me. He’ll report your presence here.

Once she’d said it, he’d spotted the car immediately, a nondescript gray sedan. He recognized the P.I., Cedric Patterson. He was pretty well-known. Most of the defense attorneys in the area used him. When Seven decided to get his own take on what happened with his brother, he’d given Patterson a call.

Which was apparently what his partner had felt the need to do. A little extra investigating—not that she’d mentioned anything to him.

Erika didn’t trust him.

And maybe she shouldn’t. What the hell, it’s not like he’d been honest, right? He was keeping secrets, fooling himself into believing that he just wanted to give it some time before he talked it over with is partner.

Well, it looked as if his time was up.

Suddenly, he felt this urge to
do
something. Like Beth, he didn’t want to swallow back his anger anymore. He wanted to let that emotion flood over him and burn him up.

He jammed the key into the ignition and turned over the engine. He had a better way to deal with this.

Erika rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. She could hear Frank snoring in the bed next to her.

Shit.

Just as she’d thought. Frank was a nester.

She’d never considered herself needy. She knew better than to let some cute banter over ribs and a cosmo bring her to this point. But here she was, wishing she could at least pass out alongside him. Instead, she was wide-awake, already dreading the awkward morning after.

She knew exactly when it had all gone wrong. She hadn’t admitted to herself how much the butchery of the day had gotten to her. Those poor women. She’d tried to keep it all professional, admiring the FBI agent solving the case with commendable precision. Snaps to Special Agent Barnes.

But that wasn’t Erika. Her Latin soul prevented that kind of distance. All along, she kept wondering how they were going to stop this monster. Who might be next if they didn’t? What good had it done her to think she could keep that cool head she projected to others?

It’s like she always said. Denial—there was no stronger emotion.

And now she had Frank camped out beside her, business that she would have to deal with in the morning, when her emotional reserves were already shot.

Only suddenly—out of nowhere—the doorbell rang, the sound echoing through the quiet condo. She glanced over at Frank, still fast asleep. She glanced at the digital alarm clock at her bedside.
What the hell?

It was well past midnight.

Again, the doorbell.

She grabbed a robe and headed for the door, wondering who would come a-knocking at this time of night. She gave a glance to the drawer where she kept her service revolver, the vivid image of those women stamped inside her head.

Maybe that’s how it had all started for Mimi Tran and Velvet Tien? A simple doorbell?

But instead of grabbing her sidearm, she checked through the peephole to see Seven standing on the other side, looking none too pleased.

“Shit!”

She stepped away from the door. She turned to stare at the room. Clothes lay strewn across the floor, like bread crumbs leading to the bedroom.

Seven was leaning on the doorbell now. Any minute, the guy in her bed would wake up from the bender they’d just shared and wonder what the hell was going on.

She opened the door a crack.

“Jesus, Seven. What the hell are you doing—”

He didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. He pushed the door open and walked inside.

“Well, come on in,” she said, shocked by the aggressive tactics.

He turned to look at her, absolutely fuming. “You didn’t think you should let me in on your little gig with Cedric?”

She immediately put it together. “Well, well, well.” She crossed her arms, leaning back on the door. She’d thought he’d left today to go put out some fire with Beth. But he must have gone straight to Gia Moon’s from the crime scene. That’s the only way he could know about Cedric.

“You went to see your psychic?”

The way she said it, it sounded like some strange accusation. Almost like some fishwife yelling at her unfaithful husband.

“I was following up on some information I had, yes. And imagine my surprise when I discover Cedric on her tail.”

Erika shook her head. Maybe it was her own secrets that gave her special insight, but suddenly she understood.