The Collector (30 page)

He looked past the woman cradling her child, something choking up in his throat. He nodded. “Okay, then.”

He left, knowing the woman wouldn’t need a lecture or a warning. God had just handed her a big one.

He sat in the car, looking out the windshield as he turned over the engine. There, shining in the bright sky, he could just make out the vague image of the moon.

“J
esus, Sam,” David said. “What the hell is going on? Is this some sort of gang thing, all these killings?”

Sam stared across the table at David Gospel. That was the first thing people brought up whenever something went wrong in Sam’s life.
Is this some sort of gang thing?

He’d asked David to meet him here at the Four Seasons for a light lunch. David had wanted to talk from the moment he’d sat down, but Sam put him off. He’d wanted to see the bastard squirm.

“You look shaken up,” Sam said.

“You bet your ass, I’m shaken up. I just got back from meeting with my attorney. They found another one of the beads. This one was lodged in Velvet’s stomach. She was my lover, Sam. For fuck’s sake, I’m their number one suspect.”

He watched David take out his handkerchief and wipe the sweat running down his face. “Apparently, Mimi Tran kept notes on her sessions. Now some asshole supposedly sent the cops what she wrote about me and her attempts to use the Eye, which would include, of course, what the damn thing looked like. Those beads, she described them in exquisite detail.”

“Really?” Sam said. “I didn’t even know Mimi took notes on her readings.”

“Neither did I, believe you me. Now the cops have me linked to all three murders. Lazy bastards. It’s fucking clear someone is trying to set me up. But they’re going for the obvious.”

“Yeah. Go figure. The police trying to make you out as the killer. But then, it’s not like they haven’t tried to peg you for a murder before, right? So why are you so shocked?”

David looked like a prey animal getting a whiff of something in the wind.

Sam took a drink of his iced tea, waiting.

“Are you talking about the Long Beach thing?” David asked. “Michelle Larson?”

“She was your mistress, wasn’t she? Just like Velvet.”

Owen had filled Sam in. He’d given him the name Michelle Larson. The rest had been easy enough to uncover.

David picked up his water glass and took a nervous sip. “Michelle was nothing like Velvet.”

“You got that right.”

“Look, she was the first psychic I went to about the Eye. But Michelle, she didn’t have Mimi’s gift. The only reason I kept seeing her was because she and I became involved. But it wasn’t like Velvet. Dammit it, Sam. I loved her—you know that!”

“Yeah. Velvet told me about how you were leaving your wife for her and everything.”

David looked so startled, Sam actually laughed.

“It’s a joke, David,” he assured him. “Just a damn joke.”

“Listen to me, Sam. Just because I didn’t have the balls to leave my wife doesn’t mean I killed Velvet.”

“Jesus, David, did you think I was accusing you? I’m sorry, man. You know, sometimes I just talk such crap.” Sam shook his head ruefully. But then he nailed his gaze on David. “But I have this idea in my head. Maybe you could help me work it out. Velvet tells you she’s ashamed, you being married and all. She was like that, you know? She had something you and I lack. A conscience.”

He watched David stiffen ever so slightly.

“So she starts to think she should move on,” Sam continued, his eyes still on his victim. “But that’s not what you want. No. You want to keep her. You’re a collector and Vee, she is a most exquisite find. You even dangle some stupid-ass job in your company—in-house counsel or some shit like that.”

How else could David think to keep a woman like Vee? Hadn’t Sam offered the same?

“At first, she’s tempted. It’s a good gig, right?” Sam continued. “But something happens, something she doesn’t expect. She falls in love.”

Owen had given him the letter, one of many that Velvet had written to David, according to his son.
She wanted him to leave my mother,
Owen had said as Sam read the letter, his gut churning at the thought of Vee’s broken heart.
Only she knew Dad would never agree.

Sam reached into his Armani jacket and pulled out Vee’s letter, the last one she’d written to David, and held it out. David looked at it as if it were a snake ready to bite him.

“She was leaving you,” Sam said, stating the gist of the note. “You couldn’t have that, now, could you?”

“I don’t know what that is, Sam,” he declared, gesturing to the envelope. “But I swear to you, Velvet never wrote me a damn letter. Never.”

Sam nodded. Of course David would deny it.

He dropped the paper on the table. David grabbed it, making a show of opening it and reading it, acting as if he’d never seen the thing before.

“Jesus, Sam. How can you be so stupid? It’s printed off a computer, for God’s sake.” He threw the letter back at him. “Anyone can steal a piece of her stationery and forge her signature.”

Sam smiled. “I’ll tell you how stupid I am. Mimi Tran came to see me almost a year ago. She told me about your little obsession with the Eye. She thought you would be willing to do just about anything for another one of the artifacts mentioned in that stone tablet of yours. I thought, shit. I can use this guy, right? I mean, who believes in that sort of funky-ass stuff besides a man ready to be scammed?”

Mimi had told Sam that David was a collector. He’d purchased some kind of clay tablet that referred to magic objects falling from the sky. The Eye was supposed to be just such an object—but there were others. If David thought Sam had connections to finding them, maybe through the heavyweights with the Chinese triads, he’d be in Sam’s back pocket.

Sam took a moment to savor the expression on David’s face. The disbelief.
Oh, yeah. You’ve been had. Big time.

“Remember our first meeting, David? How I dangled all my sources with the triad—how I knew exactly how to get in touch with the right people in the Communist government. It was just a matter of time before you had more artifacts for your collection because I had my finger on an untapped black market.”

Sam leaned forward, smiling with great glee. “I made it up, David. The whole damn story. That shit about finding the next object in Vietnam? How the Communists had taken it from some Chinese collection way back when? And my connection high in the government? All bullshit. We’ve been playing you, David. All of us, Mimi, Velvet and me.”

“Holy shit, Sam,” he whispered. “Why?”

Sam wouldn’t give David the satisfaction of the truth. That he’d wanted to be close to him—become the Vietnamese version of David Gospel.

He picked up the letter and folded it slowly. “I dragged her into it, of course. My sweet, sweet cousin. Brains and beauty? I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. She was supposed to keep an eye on you. Let me know if you were getting impatient or suspicious. Only she fell for you, you bastard. She fell hard. And suddenly, she’s part of your collection. Just like Michelle Larson.” Now, giving David a hard stare, he demanded, “Why couldn’t you just let her go?”

“I didn’t kill Velvet, Sam. I swear it!”

“You killed her, all right. And if you didn’t do it personally, you made it happen, you
fucking
whack job.”

Sam stood. He buttoned his jacket. He couldn’t believe he’d ever respected Gospel. Any man looking for some piece of rock to make him a god was weak.

“I sent the cops Mimi’s notes. In fact, I’m working closely with local law enforcement. Go figure.”

He leaned over the table pushing his face right up to David’s. “There isn’t a hole dark enough for you to hide in, you piece of shit.”

Sam pulled back and rapped his knuckles on the table with a smile.

“Lunch is on me. I hope you choke on it.”

Seven stared up at the painting. He could just make out a woman’s face. There were black holes where her eyes should have been.

Erika stood next to him. He knew what she was thinking even if she didn’t say the words out loud.
Another dead woman with her eyes missing.
…

He’d come back to the studio to talk to Gia—to let her know he understood. She was just protecting her kid.

He wanted to help her. She could trust him now. He would never hurt her—never let anyone hurt her or Stella.

When he walked in the door, he hadn’t found Gia. What he’d found was a crime scene.

He’d called Erika and she’d sent in the troops, including Agent Barnes, now standing with them. The crime scene techs were going over every inch of the place.

Agent Barnes took in the disheveled room, the front table overturned, the crushed photos.

“No leads on anyone named Rocket,” Erika said. “No missing persons report, no body found. Nada.”

Barnes nodded her head. “Given the circumstances, this Rocket person will have to wait his turn.”

It was clear that whoever had taken Gia, she’d fought with everything she had. They’d found blood on the floor next to her daughter’s photograph. The glass in the picture frame looked as if it had been ground under someone’s heel.

“You think the answer is in that painting, Detective?” Barnes asked.

Seven kept staring at the canvas. He reached out and pressed the tip of his finger to one corner. The paint was still wet.

He remembered how she always arrived at the precinct with paint under her fingernails.

“She said painting helped her deal with her visions. The paint-ing of Velvet Tien,” he said, nodding toward the other canvas set up against the studio wall. “It’s all there. The hands disappearing, the eye in the stomach, the moon on her tongue.”

Beside him, Barnes gave him a peculiar look. “So, she’s made a believer out of you.”

Seven felt something burn in his gut. He didn’t know what he thought. The newest painting was of a woman with black curls and missing eyes, obviously dead. She looked like a grown-up version of Stella.

Even in the best of circumstances, he wouldn’t have a clue what it could possibly mean or how the painting could help them find Gia.

He turned to Barnes. “You have a better idea?”

The agent seemed to think about it. She picked up her BlackBerry and punched in a number.

“Like you, I do not have the slightest notion what this painting represents, Detective Bushard. But I think I know someone who might. Lucky for us, the man she’s staying with happens to have a helicopter.”

D
avid Gospel slammed into his house. He was trapped in a fucking nightmare.

Sam Vi was threatening
him?
That
punk
was telling David to watch his back?

Fuck him. Fuck them all.

And now, even Rocket wasn’t answering his phone…when David needed to rally the troops.

He took the steps to his office two at a time. The problem was he’d been too cavalier. He realized that now. Mimi had apparently given Sam some shit on him. The first thing David needed to do was hide the evidence. That meant he needed to get rid of his collection. The only people who’d actually seen him with the Eye were dead, Mimi and Velvet. And wouldn’t those notes of Mimi’s be considered some kind of hearsay, anyway? It’s not like his attorney could cross-examine her about the contents—or was it an authentification issue? Surely there was some rule of law to prevent the cops from using those notes against him.

Dammit, he was David fucking Gospel! He wasn’t going down for murder. No way. He wasn’t going to say he’d
never
had someone killed, but he wasn’t responsible for Mimi or Velvet.

When he reached the landing, he was surprised to find his office door wide open.
Rocket.
He must have come to view the surveillance tapes. David had called Rocket in case he’d missed something. With Jack’s help, David had narrowed down the time from when the Eye had been stolen to a ten-hour window. When Jack claimed there was nothing on the tapes, David had asked for the pertinent DVDs to be brought here for review.

But why would Rocket still be going over that video? The last time David had checked in, Rocket hadn’t mentioned there was anything of interest. Surely, he would have called if the tapes showed something?

David reminded himself that Rocket was a professional. Trained by Ollie North himself.

He started walking faster, thinking maybe Rocket
had
found something, something David missed…something that would tell him who had taken the Eye.

When he walked into the office, Rocket was nowhere in sight, but he could hear the soft whirr of the DVD still spinning in the drive.

David stopped in the middle of the room, catching scent of a strange metallic smell.

The first thing he noticed was his computer screen playing the surveillance tape. And the door to his private collection, the vault room behind the mirrored entrance—Rocket had left it open?

He stepped over to the computer first, wondering why Rocket would be so careless, leaving both doors open like this. David had been desperate enough to give the access code in a message on Rocket’s cell phone, hoping his man would start the cleanup process before Sam sent the cops over with a warrant. Shit, and now it wasn’t just the police. Now he had the FBI on his ass. With a warrant, those parasites would have his office inside out within the hour.

David sensed that something was very wrong. The computer seemed to be programmed on some sort of loop, playing the same section from the surveillance tape over and over.

Suddenly, he understood why.

He dropped into the leather swivel chair in front of the enormous computer screen, his mouth gaping open.

On the thirty-two-inch screen he could clearly see the security men he’d hired. They had just finished installing the new cameras and were inspecting the system, making sure they’d covered every inch within the room and vault.

David had watched this tape before. Only now, he noticed something he’d missed.

His wife, Meredith.

She was inside the vault room; the security guys had it open while they were checking out camera angles. He could clearly see her reaching into the velvet-lined drawer,
pocketing
the Eye.

He watched the same three minutes of tape loop over and over. Meredith punching in the code, reaching into the drawer…

He realized Rocket must have seen the same thing. He would have sat here, just like David, wondering how it could be possible. Maybe he’d even programmed the computer to loop over and over—he was great with computers.

Behind him, he heard a woman’s voice say, “That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.”

He turned around. “Meredith?”

“Very good, David.” She started clapping, applauding his revelation. “Little invisible Meredith. Abracadabra, at last you see her.”

He couldn’t believe it. “You took the Eye?”

He tried to remember how many times he’d watched this very piece of tape. And yet he’d never even noticed her.

Because it was Meredith. Who would give a shit if she was in his vault? Certainly not the security guys setting up the system.

He’d never even thought to discuss her with his security team.
Keep my wife out of my collection
…. Meredith was never much of a consideration to David. Jack and his men would just assume she was in the know, hanging around to make sure they did a proper job.

Just as Mimi predicted, Meredith was invisible, to him and anyone who might question her actions.

“What have you done, Meredith?” he asked with growing horror.

She walked toward him. “Rocket called me.” She spoke in a strange monotone, sounding as if she were in some sort of trance. “He wanted to show me something.”

David remained seated in front of the computer. Meredith pointed to the screen.

“That’s what he wanted to show me.”

“It’s all right, Meredith,” he said, trying to stay calm. He had no idea what was going on, but he kept hearing Mimi’s warning in his head.

That which is invisible…

To David, there was no one more invisible than his wife.

“I’m not mad, honey,” he said, smiling now, trying to sound reassuring. “Really. Just tell me where the Eye is, and we’ll forget all about it.”

But Meredith was shaking her head. “Too late.”

She had her hands buried in the pockets of her enormous dress. Now, she slipped one free.

She was holding a gun. His Beretta. She had the damn thing pointed right at him.

“Meredith? What are you doing!”

“Too late,” she repeated.

Suddenly, David realized why the door to the vault was open. He focused there, following the legs encased in black pants inside to his secret vault room. He stood in disbelief.

Inside the chamber, Rocket lay on the floor, his legs peeking out just beyond the door to the office. Next to him was Owen, his arm stretched out over Rocket’s chest, as if he’d fallen there.

They were both dead. Shot through the back of the head by the looks of it.

David felt as if his heart would burst in his chest. “Jesus Christ, Meredith.”

She kept her eyes on him, the gun pointed at his chest. “I used the Beretta you keep in the nightstand. You showed me how to load and shoot. Remember?”

His head was spinning. Meredith shot Rocket? And Owen? That boy was her heart—her reason for being. No way she could kill Owen. No fucking way!

And still, there they were. Dead.

David hadn’t noticed the blood when he’d walked into his office. The room was too big. He wouldn’t have seen the blood splatters on the far side on his way to the computer and his desk.

“You never would have noticed me on the tape,” she said. She gave a tired shake of her head. “But Rocket, he
saw
me. Always. When you asked him to review the tapes, he couldn’t believe I’d taken anything from your collection. He came here to talk to me. He showed me, on the computer. He wanted to help me.”

“And so you
killed
him?”

She stared at David as if he’d asked a stupid question. “Of course I did. I had to. I lured Rocket into the vault. I begged him to help me put everything back. He wanted to help me, but I had to kill him. Then Owen arrived. I said to him, ‘Look what I’ve done.’ He was standing right over Rocket’s body when I shot him in the back of the head.”

Suddenly, it clicked.
She’s crazy—and she will kill me
. He took a step toward the door.

Meredith followed him with the Beretta.

“Sit down, David.”

He dropped back into his chair.

“You killed Owen?”

He regretted the words immediately. He was waving a red flag in front of a bull. If David was obsessed with his collection, Meredith had put her life’s energy into their child. She never would have hurt, much less killed, him if she was in her right mind.

She said in a soft, disjointed voice, “There must always be a sacrifice.”

He could feel himself hyperventilating. “We’ll talk to Rose,” he said, trying to get control of the situation. “She can help you.” He glanced nervously at the two bodies in the vault. “Meredith, honey. You’re obviously not feeling well. Rocket was right. I haven’t been attentive.”
Jesus!
“But I can be better. Give me a chance to help you, sweetheart. Here, I’ll just call Rose.”

He reached for the phone…only to have Meredith shoot the damn thing right off the desk.

“He was our child, David. We brought him into this world. We raised him, no one else. We are responsible.”

Oh, shit
. David Gospel did not like the sound of that.

But the sound of the Beretta going off after she pressed the barrel to his forehead…that sound, he never heard.

Seven watched Stella pace back and forth in front of her mother’s painting. Every once in a while, the kid would glance over at him…for reassurance or with suspicion, he couldn’t say.

She’d arrived in a squad car with Morgan Tyrell, her famous grandfather. The two of them were brought here from the helicopter pad at the request of Carin Barnes.

But while Tyrell had agreed to bring Stella, he was clearly not on board with Carin’s plan to use his granddaughter’s “gift.” As he’d told Carin and Seven both, Stella wasn’t ready for this.

Seven couldn’t say he disagreed. If it was the killer who had taken Gia—and they’d found plenty of evidence that he had—if they couldn’t find Gia in time, that tragedy would haunt Stella for the rest of her life.

Adding to the drama was Gia’s last session with Tyrell, witnessed by Barnes, who had been analyzing the data ever since. Gia had believed all along that Thomas Crane, Stella’s father, was behind the killings. She just couldn’t prove it. And given the fact that he’d dodged the noose for her mother’s murder, she wasn’t taking any chances pointing the finger until she had undeniable evidence of his guilt.

“What do you think?” Erika asked.

Seven shook his head. “I’m trying not to. Logic seems to get in the way in this case.”

“Maybe you’re right.” His partner cocked her head, thinking about it. She nodded toward Stella, still pacing in front of the painting.

“Go talk to her.”

If only it could be that easy
. “What am I supposed to say? I can’t fix this.”

“Come on, it’s just like you were saying…logic doesn’t work here. So why not turn logic on its head? Do the
opposite
of what makes sense? Tyrell and Agent Barnes, they’re the experts, right? They’re saying the kid can’t handle this, so hands off. But you know her, right?”

Seven’s gaze followed Stella. He couldn’t imagine what the kid was thinking or feeling right now.

“I’ve
met
her, yeah.”

“So, do you think she’s pacing in front of that painting, waiting for us to tell her what to do? If it were my mother and I thought I could help, no way I’d be waiting for the adults to figure it out, you know?” Erika followed Seven’s gaze. “Come on. The kid looks like a pistol to me. But she’s only a kid, right? So help her get through this. Go
talk
to her.”

He couldn’t explain the resistance he felt. He tried to imagine himself as the dispassionate observer, making excuses about how this wasn’t his area of expertise. That maybe Tyrell and Barnes were right. Maybe he was just scared.
If it all goes to shit and Gia dies
…

He glanced over at Erika. She mouthed the word,
Go!

He didn’t know much about this sort of thing, just what Gia had told him and what he’d read on the Internet. He didn’t even know if he believed in the paranormal. But he knew what he’d seen the night Gia stopped breathing beside him in bed, and he’d seen her paintings and their eerie similarities to the actual crime scenes. If Stella had a touch of what her mother had…

He took a deep breath and walked over to the kid.

“So,” he said, falling in step with her as she paced, “how’s it going?”

“How’s it
going?
” Stella stopped dead, looking up at him. “Are you for real? Some psycho killer just took my mom and you want to know how it’s going?”

But behind the bravado, he could see that hint of relief. Someone had engaged her; she wasn’t in this alone.

He nodded. “You’re right. That was pretty lame. Come on.” He tipped his head toward the studio door. “Let’s go to the kitchen. You got any soda here?”