The Murderer's Daughter (23 page)

Up the stairs they went.

“Voilà,” said Sophie.

The word was obviously a family saying. Grace resolved to find a dictionary as soon as she could.

The room Sophia had taken her to was the size of three rooms at the ranch, with windows on two walls that looked down on the beautiful garden.

But it wasn't fancy, just the opposite. The bed was grown-up-sized but covered with a plain white cover, the walls were tan, looked old, had no pictures or decorations. The floors were bare wood. No furniture at all.

“Everything happened quickly, no time to furnish properly,” said Sophia. Unlike Malcolm, she explained but didn't apologize. Maybe because she was the rich one?

“I like it,” said Grace.

“You're being gracious but we both know this is a work in progress, so bear with me, Grace. You and I will go shopping soon enough, we'll set it up so it's appropriate for a young woman of your age and intelligence.”

Grace said nothing.

Sophia said, “That sound okay?”

“Yes.”

“Meanwhile, you must be hungry, I'm sure that hellhole served you swill. So come down to the kitchen, we'll find you some decent food.”

Grace followed Sophia down the stairs. Sophia moved quickly, not bothering to check if Grace was okay.

She figures I'm fine. This is a new kind of person.

And thus began the good part of Grace Blades's life.

G
race's summary of that time to Wayne Knutsen, Esq., was brief and matter-of-fact.

He said, “Thank God for people like that,” and Grace thought he sounded a bit rueful, as if he'd missed out on something.

Taking advantage, she said, “Anyway, I need your help.”

He said, “Hmm. Okay, my police contacts aren't half bad.”

“I'd prefer not,” said Grace. “The police won't take me seriously.”

“Why wouldn't they?”

“It's old news and pure supposition, not a shred of evidence.”

Wayne labored to his feet, took a few steps, returned to the throne behind his desk. Businesslike now. “You're right. Objectively, there isn't much to go on, what would I tell the chief—” Color spread from his chin to his forehead. Continued on to his bald pate, turning him into a well-dressed tomato. “Forgive the pretentiousness, he and I have attended some of the same fund-raisers. In fact, that's why I'm dressed like this. Hotsy-totsy golf day at a pardon-the-expression country club. But no more name-dropping, I promise.”

“It's names that I need, Wayne.
Their
real names—Sam, Ty, Lily. So I can find out what happened to them.”

He gave her a long, searching look.

“Know thy enemy, Wayne. I can't live like this, wondering if he's lurking around every corner.”

He tented his fingers. “All this because you believe he killed his brother.”

“His brother a few days ago and Bobby Canova twenty-three years ago. And who knows how many others in between.”

And almost me.

“Why would there be others?”

“Because someone malignant that young isn't going to devote his life to good deeds.”

Wayne didn't answer.

Grace said, “I've never been more certain of anything.”

“That handicapped boy—”

“Bobby Canova. His death record will be listed as accidental. But Sam pulled out that air tube, there's no other way it could've happened. I saw him that morning, Wayne. He was proud of himself. Smiling with contentment. The same smile he wore when he saw Ramona's body. He made
sure
I saw him. Wanting me to know that he was taking credit for her death, as well.”

Wayne winced.

A soft man, a caring man. Grace worked with that. “He enjoyed it. That kind of appetite doesn't just disappear, Wayne. I'm certain he's done others.”

“So calculated at that age…”

“My point exactly, Wayne. We're talking A-plus psychopathy. I need you to help me find him.”

“And when you do?”

“Once I gather enough facts, you can talk to the police chief or any other big-shot contacts. Until then, without sufficient facts, I'll only be putting myself in the crosshairs.”

Wayne thought for a while, rational, deliberative, the way a good lawyer should be. He pulled a pen out of a desk drawer. Gold-plated, a Montblanc that had to cost four figures. “And how, exactly, am I supposed to find out this little monster's real name?”

“I don't know,” said Grace. “But you're all I've got.”

Actually, she had plenty of suggestions.
You were part of the damn system so work it, turn those years into something positive.

But the old joke was true:

How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?

Only one but the bulb has to want to change.

Better he should come to the conclusion himself.

Still, on the off chance he didn't, Grace would do her damnedest to lead him there.

The throne swiveled. Wayne leaned back and half reclined. Crossed his ankles. Rolled the pen between chubby fingers.

“Twenty-three years ago,” he said. “Social service records were as confidential then as they are now.”

“Officially,” said Grace. “We both know how that works.”

He didn't answer.

“Officially,” she said, “foster homes were loving places straight out of G-rated sitcoms, run by caring, compassionate guardian angels. Officially, endings were happy.”

His head lowered. Studying the leather top of his desk.

“Besides, Wayne, there's no such thing as privacy in the Internet age.”

Several more moments of silent contemplation followed. “All right, no promises, Grace, I'll see what I can dig up. I suppose it's the least I can do by way of expiation.”

He had nothing to make up for. But let him think he did.

He walked her
to the door, asked her if she needed anything else.

“Names will be a good start.”

“In the unlikely event I actually come up with something, where can I reach you?”

She'd come prepared with the number of one of the disposable cells on a small, pink Post-it.

He glanced at it. “Your office?”

“My office is closed until future notice.”

His face fell. “This really is serious.”

“I wouldn't be here otherwise, Wayne.”

“Yes, yes, of course…all right, I'll do my best. Either way, you'll hear from me in—say two, three days. By then I should know if it's possible.”

“Thank you, Wayne.” Grace kissed his cheek.

He touched the spot, reverently. “Thank
you.
For becoming the person you are.”

Watchful, ever watchful,
Grace left the office building, retrieved the Jeep, and drove back to the Valley, pleased with congested traffic that gave her time to think.

By the time she reached her room at the Hilton, she was tired and hungry. Plenty of jerky remained in her provision stash and the dry salami hadn't been touched. But hazarding a real meal seemed low-risk so she took the stairs down, checked out the lobby, continued to the hotel restaurant.

Seated at a corner table with a wide view of the entire room, she ordered soup, salad, a ten-ounce rib eye, medium rare, and iced tea.

The waitress said, “We're pouring passion fruit tonight.”

“Passion is fine.”

Decent-enough grub but
the generic room was thinly populated. Mostly business types, trios and quartets, pretending to talk to one another but really focused on phones and tablets and personal agendas.

One solo: a thin-haired and slightly puffy but strangely handsome, fortyish man in a dark-blue shirt and gray slacks reading the
Times
and drinking a beer in a nearby booth. Handsome enough to draw forth extra-helpful smiles from the waitress. He reacted politely before returning to the sports pages.

Between Grace's soup and salad, her eyes met his. Brief smiles were exchanged. Friendly but mildly conspiratorial?

Grace knew that look.

Perfect setting, a hotel that catered to out-of-towners.

Not tonight, dear.

Moments later, Grace's suppositions were shaken by the appearance of a cute blonde wearing a big diamond on her left ring finger.

Kisses and smiles all around. Hubby finished his beer and the couple left, her hand tapping his butt a couple of times.

Was she slipping? No, he'd definitely given her the eye. Blondie had no idea what lay ahead of her.

Grace ate her steak too quickly to taste much, went back to her room and double-bolted the door.

She fell asleep almost immediately, with barely enough time for self-instruction:

Tonight: no dreams.

Successfully blank and
reasonably refreshed, she awoke at six a.m., ready to work.

No message from Wayne, no surprise. Way too early for him to try to worm his way into social service records. Assuming he wouldn't change his mind.

A bleeding heart, Ramona had called him, and Grace hoped his cardiac muscles remained mushy. But he might balk at wading into a mess. Or simply change his mind. So Grace had to consider reneging a possibility.

With or without him, she'd keep going.

The way it always had been, always would be.

Using another prepaid phone, she checked her service for messages.

Three new possible patients. They'd have to wait until Dr. Blades got her house in order. But the cry for help from a former patient, a woman named Leona who'd lost an arm five years ago after being set ablaze by a lunatic boyfriend, required immediate attention.

She reached the woman at home in San Diego. The crisis was an attack flashback, the first in three years, and you didn't need to be a master therapist to figure out why: Leona had met a new man and allowed herself to hope, only to experience him drunk and verbally aggressive.

“I thought, Dr. Blades, that he was going to attack me. He claims he'd never do it but I don't know.”

You sure as hell don't.

Grace said, “You did the right thing by calling.”

“Really? I'm a little…ashamed. I didn't want to bother you. Make you think I was falling apart.”

“Just the opposite, Leona. Asking for help is a sign of strength.”

“Oh. Okay. Yes, I know you've told me that but until now I didn't need help.”

Things change, honey.

“True,” said Grace. “Now you do and I'm here for you and you acted accordingly. That's flexibility, Leona. That's why you've adjusted so well and will continue to do so. How about starting at the beginning…”

You
did
need
to be a master therapist to take care of a crisis long-distance while sitting in a generic hotel room, worried about your own survival.

Grace spent eighty minutes on the phone and Leona hung up sounding reasonably mended. Well enough not to ask for a face-to-face. Grace would've despised having to put her off.

Free of professional responsibility for the moment, she took a long hot bath, toweled off, and subjected her clothes to the sniff test. No stale aroma, she'd never been an odoriferous girl. At least another day of use.

She found what she was looking for on the Internet, packed everything up, and settled her hotel bill. Gassing the Jeep at a nearby filling station, she checked the oil and tires and used a squeegee to clean the windows.

At the nearest Staples she headed for the self-service machines. The neck-tattooed stoner behind the counter didn't look up when she paid cash.

Back in the Jeep, she removed five cards from a neat stack of fifty and placed them in her purse. The rest she stashed in the glove compartment.

The stiff, polished beige paper she'd selected had a nice feel to it. Bold embossed lettering implied confidence.

M. S. Bluestone-Muller

Commercial and Industrial Security

Risk Assessment

In the lower left corner of the card was a random P.O.B. that claimed to be situated in Fresno. In the lower right, Grace had listed a phone number that connected to a seldom-answered landline in a basement psych lab at Harvard. An extension phone grad students had stashed in a drawer years ago so they could ignore it and sleep off hangovers.

Starting up the Jeep, she tuned the satellite radio to light classical and caught the beginning of the fourth Bach cello suite, Yo-Yo Ma at his best.

Nothing like being in the company of genius on a road trip.