In Dark Places

by Michael Prescott

  "Eddie says it's not the Gs who are short. It's him. Him personally. He fucked up, he says. They gave him the full payment, like always. He lost it." Brand slipped into Eddie's voice again. " 'Motherfucking dogfights, man.'"

  Then Brand's own voice, hard and clipped. " 'You gambled the money on some fucking dog?'

  " 'It was stupid, okay? They told me I couldn't lose.'

  " 'They were wrong, paquito. You lost big-time.'"

  He fell silent.

  "What happens, Alan?" she asked. "Alan?"

  "Bang."

  Brand spoke the word with sudden vehemence, loud in Robin's headset. She jumped a little.

  "One round in the face. Asshole crumbles. He's twitching, jittering.

  "You backed the wrong dog, Eddie," Brand said.

  Robin wasn't sure if he was repeating what he'd said then or commenting on what he saw now. She licked her lips, fighting the dryness in her mouth.

  "What are youI mean, what's the cop going to do now?" she asked. "How can he get away with it?"

  A cynical smile formed on Brand's lips. "Oh, he'll get away with it. All he's gotta do is plant a throwdown on Eddie, an old three-eighty wheel gun he's got. Then call in an officer-involved shooting, finesse the shooting review. No sweat."

  He was wrong about that part, at least. His face was bathed in a sheen of perspiration.

  Robin got up from her chair and expelled a shaky breath. "All right, Alan. I want you to leave that memory now, leave it and rest. Don't think about it. Don't think about anything. Just rest."

  Chapter Nine

  She and Brand spoke little after he regained alertness. He seemed dazed, uneasy. She wasn't sure how much he remembered of what he'd told her. It was common for patients to be unsure of exactly what they had experienced while in the trance state. And she didn't think it would be wise to press him on the details and possibly jog his memory.

  "As a rule," she said briskly, "we don't make much progress in an initial session, but if you're willing to work with me, we can go deeper and retrieve more details next time."

  This was safely general and, she hoped, would convince him that he'd said nothing incriminating.

  Brand just nodded. He pressed a hand to his forehead.

  "A slight headache may persist for a while. Aspirin will take care of it."

  This raised a wispy smile. "Take two aspirin and call you in the morning?"

  "Call me anytime. I'm always available if you need to talk about amp; anything." She handed him her card, which gave her cell phone number and office address, but not her home address, of course. Her residence was unlisted, and she was suddenly glad about thatalthough a cop could find it anyway, couldn't he?

  "Thanks, Doctor." He palmed the card without looking at it.

  She led him through the empty waiting room into the hall. As he was leaving, he turned to her with a puzzled look.

  "Did I say amp; Did I amp;?"

  She waited, her breath held.

  Then he shook his head. "Never mind."

  "The session went very smoothly, Alan, but you can't expect significant results the first time. This was more of an introduction to the process."

  "Introduction. Yeah."

  "Can I expect you to show up for your next appointment?"

  "I'll be here," Brand said, but he didn't sound sure.

  He left the building, exiting into the parking lot at the rear. Robin returned to her office and locked the door.

  She was trembling. Maybe not quite so badly as after the carjacking attempt. Still, this seemed to be her day of living dangerously.

  If Brand had been on the take, had shot that man in cold blood, execution style, with no possible justification amp;

  Then he was a stone-cold killer, and he would surely not be reluctant to kill anyone who stumbled onto his secret.

  But he'd taken no action toward her. Perhaps because he was too dazed to act. Or because he didn't recall what he'd said. Or because he wasn't a killer at all.

  It was possible. No therapeutic technique was infallible. The MBI procedure could dredge up repressed material, long-forgotten abuse, memories blocked by some self-protective action of the subconscious, but sometimes it could also manufacture false memories, stories that seemed real but were only elaborate fantasies.

  She had not personally encountered this problem before. As far as she knew, all the memories recovered from her other patients were genuine. This one might be, as well.

  If it was amp;

  Then she knew why Brand had been so resistant, why he had skipped his appointment, why he'd become more nervous when the topic of entering a trance had come up. And perhaps why he'd been showing the apparent symptoms of post-traumatic stress in the first place.

  Edginess, impaired concentration, panic episodes could all be produced by a stress disorder amp; or by guilt. If not guilt, then fear of getting caught.

  She paced, trying to decide what to do. Go to Deputy Chief Wagner? Physician-patient confidentiality did not apply to cases in which a crime had been committed. In fact, she was legally obligated to report what she'd learned. But if it was a false memory, she would be incriminating an innocent man. And even if the memory was accurate, it would be her word against hisand the police were never eager to turn against one of their own.

  The alternative was to wait it out, see if the same material resurfaced in subsequent sessions, maybe get his confession on tape. But suppose he was guilty. He might come after her.

  Maybe it would have been better if she hadn't been so damn stubborn about tracking this man down. Maybe she shouldn't have gone to Wolper and made him give her Brand's whereabouts.

  She stopped pacing.

  Wolper. She could talk to him. He'd already made it clear that he wanted to protect Brand. He wouldn't go running to the higher-ups without good reason. At the same time, he'd been willing to help her when she asked. And he might know enough about the shooting to judge whether or not Brand's remembered version of the event was plausible.

  It was a place to start, anyway. She looked up the number of the Newton Area station and called, asking for Lieutenant Wolper. After some delay she was transferred to an unpleasant female voice she recognized as that of Wolper's civilian assistant. The day watch ended at three, she was told. The lieutenant was gone for the day.

  "I need to speak with him. Can you give me a number where he can be reached?"

  "It's not possible for me to give out that information."

  "Then it looks like I'll have to go straight to Deputy Chief Wagner. He's not going to be happy to be distracted by a matter the lieutenant could have handledif I'd been able to find him."

  A tick of silence on the line, then a sigh. "I can give you his cell number."

  Robin took down the information and called that number. Wolper answered. "Look, Doctor," he said when she'd identified herself, "if you still can't find Brand, I don't know what more I can"

  "I found him. We had our first session."

  "Hallelujah. So what's the problem?"

  "Something came up. I can't talk about it over the phone. I amp; I amp; need to see you."

  "If you wanted a date that bad, you could've just asked."

  "Lieutenant"

  "Okay, okay, just a joke. This can't wait, I take it?"

  "No."

  "You know Patsy's All-American?"

  "Say again?"

  "It's a coffee shop, corner of Santa Monica and La Brea. I'm sort of a regular. They make good burgers. What do you say we meet there about five-thirty?"

  "That's fine. Thank you, Lieu" But he'd already hung up.

  She checked the clock. Four-fifteen. There would be no time for her to go home before heading to the coffee shop. And she might not be home in time for dinner.

  She dialed her home number. Meg should have been home from school an hour agoshe and Jamie were driven home by Jamie's mother in the afternoon.

  She got through to Meg on the third ring.

  "Hey, Mom. What's
up?"

  "Looks like I'm going to be late tonight."

  "Now that's unusual." Sarcasm, a favorite weapon of the long-suffering high school student.

  "I know I've been busy lately," Robin said, "what with the research project coming on top of my regular client list. But it won't last much longer. And you know it's important to me."

  "I get it. No problem."

  "The thing is, there was a amp; complication with one of my patients. I need to talk to someone about it. It may take a while."

  "Mom, I can handle being on my own."

  "There's still some of that Chinese food in the fridge."

  "I'll reheat it. My microwave skills are improving daily."

  "I'm sorry about this. I shouldn't be too late."

  "Take your time. I'm okay. Like the man said, everything's copacetic."

  "Don't say that." She felt a stab of some emotion that was either anger or fear. "Don't use his words."

  "It was only a joke."

  "I'm serious, Meg."

  "Okay, Mom. Okay."

  Robin took a breath. "Sorry. I'm a little wound up."

  "Well, you can chill. Feeble attempt at humor, that's all it was. Uh, you know I'm going over to Jamie's later?"

  "That's tonight?"

  "Yeah. Monday."

  "Right, right. Not till seven-thirty, though?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Don't worry; I'll be home in time to drive you there."

  "If you get held up or something, I can take the bus."

  "A city bus? I don't think so."

  "We live in West LA, Mom. There's, like, no crime in this part of town."

  "There's crime in every part of town. I will be home in time to drive you, and you will not take the bus. Is that clear?"

  "You're kind of paranoid, you know that?"

  "I'm a parent. A certain degree of paranoia is normal and healthy."

  "You learn that in shrink school?" Robin shut her eyes. "I learned it in life."

  Chapter Ten

  Megan Cameron hung up, shaking her head. She wasn't sure what it was about her mom. She was always worrying about not being there for her daughter, not spending enough time at home, all that stuff.

  Probably it was overcompensation. Some single-parent guilt trip. Maybe her mom thought Meg blamed her for the divorce. Which she didn't. Nor had she ever tried to play one parent against the other, or ever suggested that she'd rather live with Dan.

  That was how she thought of himas Dan, never as her father. He hadn't been around enough to be a father.

  He was an artist, probably a good oneat least everybody seemed to think he was good, and his paintings, which were more like mixed-media collages, were displayed in galleries around Santa Barbara. Rich people paid major bucks to buy his originals and his limited-edition lithographs. He had even worked as a designer for a big hotel chain, flying around the country to supervise the decoration of lobbies and luxury suites.

  He was talented, maybe a genius. He just wasn't a father.

  He had unlimited time to devote to his projects. He could work in his studio, a converted guesthouse at the back of the property they'd owned, for forty-eight hours straight. He could go without eating or sleeping or bathing. When he got inspired, he got wild and frazzled. His creative spells weren't much different from an alcoholic's drinking jags.

  Okay, that wasn't fair. Her father produced works of art. He wasn't some drunk on a lost weekend. But the point was, he might as well have been, because it didn't make any difference whether he was creating a new canvas or sleeping off a bender. Either way, he wasn't there for her, or for her mom either.

  And then on one of his tripsit might have been the hotel gig, or some out-of-state gallery openinghe met a woman with the laughably chichi name of Cassandra, and he started fucking her, and, of course, before long Robin found out. There was yelling, followed by weeks of tense silence, until finally her mom came to Meg's room one night to tell her the marriage was over.

  That was two years ago, when Meg was thirteen. Once the divorce was finalized, she and her mom moved from Santa Barbara to LA. Robin claimed there were better career prospects in a bigger city, but Meg knew she just wanted to get away from the memories and start over.

  Dan visited occasionally, acting from a sense of duty to his daughteran extremely weak sense of duty, seeing as how he saw her only two or three times a year. It wasn't like Santa Barbara was a million miles away. Apparently a two-hour drive was too big an effort for a busy creative genius to make.

  She had no problems living with her mom. She just wished Robin would stop worrying so much and start treating her like an adult.

  She sighed, studying herself in the bedroom mirror. She had changed out of her despised school uniform into jeans and a T-shirt. A long fall of blond hair framed her suntanned face. Despite her protests about granola bars for breakfast, she had so far avoided any major breakouts of acne, and she'd shaken off her baby fat last year. She was frequently mistaken for an eighteen-year-old. Visiting the USC campus, she had passed for a freshman.

  She was, for all practical purposes, an adult. Everyone but her mom saw it.

  The intercom buzzed.

  Her reflection frowned with a who-could-this-be expression. UPS or FedEx, maybe.

  She left her bedroom, went downstairs into the foyer where the intercom control was located, and keyed the microphone. "Yes?"

  "Guess who?" a familiar voice said.

  She didn't answer. She couldn't believe he was here. He had never come to her home.

  "You there?" the voice crackled.

  Still without reply, she pressed the button that unlatched the front gate. Then she opened the door and watched him stroll through the courtyard of the condominium complex. He was wearing a business suit, as usual.

  "Get inside," she hissed. "Hurry up!"

  He obeyed, but with a wry smile that mocked her worries. When he was in the condo and the door was closed, she turned to him, speechless.

  "Surprised?" he said with a smile that showed that the question was rhetorical.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Visiting you."

  "That's really stupid, Gabe. Robin"

  "Is at work."

  "Somebody could see you."

  "They're ail at work, too."

  "No, they're not. Some of them are retired or they work at home. They could be looking out the window"

  "They still wouldn't see me. I'm invisible when I want to be." He fluttered his hand in a magician's wave. "I cast no shadow."

  "Be serious. There are rules. We can't screw around like this."

  "I thought screwing around was the whole point." He pulled her into his arms and soothed her with a kiss. "Don't fret, Meg. Nobody saw anything. This is LA. Nobody ever sees anything."

  Meg sighed, relenting. "I guess you're right. I mean, I don't want to get all uptight. One paranoid obsessive in the family is enough."

  "Meaning?"

  "Robin." She always referred to her mom that way in conversations with Gabe. It just sounded more adult. "She's kind of overprotective."

  "That's a parent's prerogative."

  "You sound just like her."

  "I'd better quit before I get in any deeper. So is there anything to drink in this dump?"

  She punched him lightly on the arm for the "dump" remark, then led him into the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and helped himself to a bottle of beer.

  "Hey," she asked, "you have any kids?"

  He twisted off the bottle cap. "What makes you ask?"

  "That stuff you said about being a parent."

  "That stuff was just something to say. Didn't mean anything."

  She noticed he hadn't answered her question. No surprise there. Gabe never told her anything about his personal life. He didn't wear a wedding ring, so she liked to think he wasn't married. He could be taking it off, though.

  All she knew about him was that he was in law enforcement. Could be LAPD or Sheriff's Depar
tment or FBI. He'd never even told her his age, though she guessed he was about forty. She couldn't press him for the information since, after all, they both knew that age didn't matter. That was the whole basis of their relationship. If age mattered, she ought to be seeing one of her classmates. But her classmates didn't interest her. She couldn't talk to them, couldn't relate to them at all. They treated her like a girl. With Gabe, it was different. With him, she was a woman.

  A memory floated back to her. Her own words, spoken defiantly. You kill women.

  And his answer: No. I kill girlslike you.

  "Jerk," she whispered.

  "What was that?" Gabe looked up from his beer.

  "Just amp; thinking of someone."

  "Should I be jealous?" His smile told her that the idea was a joke. For a moment she wished she could make him jealous. She could invent a suitor, see how Gabe reacted. But she'd never been any good at games like that.

  "No," she said. "It was this guy I met one time at Robin's office. This psychopath."

  "You don't have to be a psychopath to see a psychiatrist."

  Gabe handed her the beer bottle. She hesitated, then drank from it.

  "I know that. This guy was, though. He's a serial killer. The one who killed high school girls. Justin Gray."

  "Robin's trying to rehabilitate him?"

  "Seems like a long shot, huh?"

  "The longest. How the hell did you meet him, anyway?"

  She took another swallow of beer. "It was about a month ago. I got out of school early, hitched a ride with a friend. He dropped me at her office. I thought she'd be happy to see me, but she, like, freaked. Wanted to get me out of there before the guy arrived. She called a cab, but he got there first. They brought him in a prison van. In handcuffs, with armed guards and everything. And he saw me."

  "He say anything to you?"

  "Nothing much."

  This was untrue. They had exchanged more than a few words in the waiting room of Robin's office, the killer named Justin Gray staring down at her from his height of six foot one.

  "Well," he'd said with a cool smile, "what've we got here? Catholic schoolgirl on a field trip?"