The Collector

by Cameron

  “D.G. is David Gospel?”

  She said it as if maybe she’d imagined the manager saying the name.

  “David Gospel,” Seven echoed.

  He was pretty sure she mouthed the words holy shit before she opened the Crown Vic’s door and slipped inside.

  21

  The psychic was back. And she was talking in nursery rhymes.

  “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly,” she said. “I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—perhaps she’ll die.”

  Gia Moon had been waiting in the interview room when Seven and Erika arrived back from Le Jardin. She was dressed in jeans and one of those embroidered cotton tunic tops, looking very much the artist. Her hair fell loose down her back, thick and black, and she kept looping the long bangs behind her ears in a nervous gesture.

  On the floor beside her was one of those canvas mailbags, making Seven wonder about women and these huge purses. What the hell did they carry around inside those things, anyway? An earthquake kit? And what were men missing out on with their skimpy wallets?

  “There was an old lady who swallowed a spider. That wriggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.”

  Listening to Gia recite the rhyme, Erika wore a look of total disbelief on her face. Not that it bothered Gia Moon. She just kept on going.

  “She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly—perhaps she’ll die.”

  Seven thought the two women made a fair contrast. Erika, too, wore jeans, the pricey kind they advertise in the magazines to fit every curve…and she didn’t mind bragging about it. She’d tucked them into brown suede boots that matched her corduroy blazer.

  Seven knew Erika was vain about her figure, and she had cause to be. Muy caliente didn’t begin to describe the Latina homicide detective with her large brown eyes and flowing curls.

  Erika had once told Seven about this magazine article that claimed Latinas were twice as likely to reapply mascara, going for a more dramatic look. He remembered how she’d batted her lashes at him while she’d said it.

  In contrast, Gia’s hair looked as if she’d stepped right out of the shower and let it dry naturally. Again, her face was bare of makeup. Seven figured that with those sooty black lashes rimming her eyes, anything like mascara would be superfluous.

  But while Erika’s beauty tended to intimidate, Gia came off as soft and fragile. Seven doubted the image fit. Watching her now, he wondered what else could be part of the act.

  Under her short nails, he saw paint again, the same shades of red.

  “It goes on,” she said, talking about the nursery rhyme.

  “No kidding?” Erika said, sitting down, her stoic expression saying it all. This is such bullshit….

  “The animals get bigger and bigger. It ends with a horse. There was an old lady who swallowed a horse. She’s dead—”

  “Of course,” Erika said, finishing the rhyme for her. “So you think next time we’re going to find a horse’s head stuffed in the victim’s mouth? Did you see that in your dreams, too?”

  Gia stared up at her, unblinking. “You don’t understand.”

  “It’s a game,” Seven said, putting the pieces together.

  She turned to focus those brilliant blue eyes on him. “That’s right. The bead, I saw it more clearly this time. It’s part of a necklace. The killer will keep giving you bits and pieces of it, like bread crumbs.”

  She reached for her purse on the floor. She pulled out a folded piece of paper. Watching her closely, he could see her take a breath, like someone bracing herself to plunge into dicey waters. She unfolded it and spread it out with shaking hands.

  It was a pencil sketch of a crudely made necklace. The piece was intrinsically beautiful. The thing looked like it belonged in a museum.

  Seven took the paper, frowning at the sketch. A string of small stones surrounded a central crystal the size of his fist. It seemed to be held together by some sort of wire wrapped around each stone.

  She’d done a beautiful job, giving only a few details, allowing for the imagination to fill in the blanks.

  Only one section was rendered with exquisite precision, making it seem almost as if it were spotlighted there on the paper. She’d shaded that bead to show even the cat’s-eye line down the center.

  It looked identical to the one they’d found inside the bird’s beak.

  “Find out whoever has this,” Gia said, “and you’ll get closer to the killer.”

  Erika took the sheet from Seven. Other than the photograph they’d shown Professor Murphy, no one outside of homicide had seen the bead they’d found at the crime scene.

  Only here it was, sketched to perfection.

  “It hasn’t been reported stolen yet,” Gia said. “Whoever has the necklace, either they haven’t figured out it’s missing, or they don’t want to reveal they had the necklace in the first place.”

  “So now you’re doing police work?” Erika asked, still holding the drawing. “Wow. You ever thought about being a cop? Really, you’re good.”

  Gia Moon leaned across the table and grabbed Erika’s arm. She looked into her eyes and said, “His name is Alfonso. He left when you were seven. You had to grow up fast. And yes. He is very sorry.”

  Erika dropped the sketch as if she’d been burned.

  Seven could see the breath leave his partner’s chest…and he knew how she felt. He was having trouble sucking in the oxygen himself.

  “Sorry,” Gia said, sitting back in her chair. “I don’t usually do that, but I need you to believe me.” She turned to Seven. “The killer. He’s hungry again, ready to take his next victim.”

  “The last time we spoke,” Seven said, sitting down beside her, “I believe you said you were next.”

  She sighed, looking exasperated. “I don’t know. Maybe. That’s what I thought, but now I’m not so sure. Sometimes it’s difficult to interrupt what the spirits show me.”

  “Meaning,” Erika said, still looking shaken, “you were wrong before…so maybe you’re wrong now?”

  Gia shook her head, her tone emphatic. “It’s going to happen, Detective. And soon. The energy in my dream—it’s closer, stronger. He’s playing a game. I don’t know the rules or the timing.” She turned to Seven. “Look, I wish I could give you the killer’s name, rank and serial number. But I can’t.”

  Erika raised her brows at Seven, warning him not to fall for those pretty blue eyes and that desperate expression. She tipped her head toward the hall, wanting him to join her outside.

  To Gia, she said, “You’ll excuse us?”

  In the hallway, Erika barely waited for Seven to shut the door before she started in.

  “Did you see that drawing? Everything’s blurry and indistinct, except the bead found at the crime scene.” She started pacing, shaking her head. “It’s too good, Seven.”

  “It’s not like she’s the only one who knows what this thing looks like,” he argued, saying the obvious. “What about that Web site for The Lunites. There had to be some kind of image there?”

  She shook her head. “Nada. Just a lot of speculation about what it could look like.”

  “And the professor? Murphy certainly seemed to know all about this thing—”

  “Bullshit.” She came up to him, talking in a rush. “I said it before, Seven. Your psychic did this.”

  He watched Erika’s chest pumping up and down, her breathing hard as she waited for his reaction. Your psychic. Already, that connection was spelled out between them, a great divide between partners.

  Seven knew he was taking a chance, and still he asked, “What she said in there about your father—”

  “That stuff about Alfonso? You’re not taking that shit seriously, are you? Like it’s some kind of secret? Next, she’ll be talking about your brother going to prison for murder, as if it wasn’t headline news.” Erika put both fists on her hips, spitting mad. “It’s a parlor trick, Seven. She’s hiding something. She knows who murdered Mimi Tran a
nd she doesn’t want to implicate herself.” Erika leaned into him, speaking in a harsh whisper. “If this is a game, I’m telling you right now, cowboy, she’s the master of ceremonies.”

  But her expression said something different; she wasn’t so comfortable with Gia and her insights.

  “So why not keep with it?” he asked. “We pretend we believe her. Get as much information as we can…let her show her hand?”

  Erika closed her eyes. He could almost see the steam coming out of her ears.

  When she got herself together, she said, “So it’s Ouija board detective work from now on?”

  “You got something better?” he asked.

  He didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, he walked into the interview room, shutting the door behind him. He knew Erika. She wasn’t coming back inside. That would involve eating too much crow.

  Gia Moon stood next to the table, her mailbag now slung over one shoulder, as if she was ready to take her leave. He noticed the drawing still on the table. He folded it and put it away, making sure it would be part of the file.

  “Sorry,” she said, revisiting her apology.

  “Because?” he asked.

  She shrugged, her thumb hooked around the strap of her purse. “I’m not usually so…intrusive,” she said, referring to her interaction with Erika and her insights about Alfonso.

  “Funny thing. You don’t look the least bit sorry.”

  She lifted her chin. “Okay. Maybe I’m not. Sometimes it helps jump-start the process, a sort of show of proof.” Suddenly, she gave a sheepish smile. “But I have a feeling it didn’t work.”

  Seven told himself he wasn’t about to believe in the supernatural. He actually agreed with Erika; there had to be a gimmick.

  But he also knew his job. He was the cool observer. He needed to take in information, not filter it out. Later, he could analyze. But once you shut the door on a source, you had nothing.

  “Would you like to get some coffee?” he asked. And when she hesitated, he said, “Come on. You didn’t make the trip down here just to recite some nursery rhyme and show me a sketch. There has to be more to it. And I happen to be a good listener.”

  Unlike Erika, whom he imagined standing just outside the door in high dudgeon, her stubborn jaw locked in place.

  “Your partner left,” Gia said.

  He tried not to react, as if someone reading his mind was an everyday thing. He just stood there, waiting her out.

  “All right,” she said. “Coffee.”

  As she walked past, he thought he heard her say, “If that’s what it’s going to take.”

  Erika still hadn’t caught her breath. She was jogging—no, sprinting—back to the Crimes Against Persons unit. She hadn’t even looked when Seven stepped back inside to finish the interview.

  When Gia touched her—when she’d said those things about her dad—Erika felt like someone had just ripped open her head.

  She had no idea how that woman had gotten her information on Alfonso. According to all legal documents, Erika’s father was dead and buried. Her mother never changed the paperwork.

  Moving down the hall, Erika told herself to calm down. That’s the way these people operated. Like those magicians in Vegas, they put on a good show and they knew all the tricks. There was no reason for her to freak out like this. What happened back in the interview room wasn’t real.

  And yes. He is very sorry.

  “Shit,” she said out loud.

  How long had she waited to hear those words from Alfonso? I’m sorry, Erika. What I did to you and Miguel was wrong….

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Erika told herself to get a grip. How many times had an espiritista or a curandero taken advantage of her mother in that very way? Whenever Erika called mami, her mother was buying some new herbal treatment or making a payment for advice. People could always take advantage of Milagro because she believed…just like she’d believed Alfonso before the bastard abandoned his family.

  Well, that wasn’t Erika. She would never be that naive.

  Back at the office, she unlocked the drawer to her desk and grabbed her purse. Not for one minute did she believe that Gia Moon had a gift.

  The woman was a fraud, pure and simple. And Erika planned to prove it.

  Just like Gia Moon, Erika had a couple of tricks up her sleeve.

  22

  Seven realized he’d been wrong about never trying Vietnamese food. He’d forgotten about the coffee.

  He’d read somewhere that Vietnam had surpassed Colombia in producing and exporting the bean. Ca phé sua nong, black coffee—a kind of mule kick to the head—was his usual. Always ordered with a croissant. On hot days, he even dabbled in the more exotic—filtered coffee balanced with the sweetness of condensed milk and served over ice.

  He liked it best at the very Anglo-sounding Coffee Factory, a place with too much polish to conjure up images of anything other than Starbucks despite the French menu and scenic pictures of Vietnam on the walls. Given Erika’s present state of mind, the Coffee Factory might not count as a Vietnamese culinary experience. She’d probably want him to down one of those jellyfish salads before she gave her epicurean thumbs-up.

  He and Gia met outside at one of the bistro tables under a tan umbrella. He’d ordered ca phé phin, as plain as it gets. She had ca phé den da, iced coffee served with black tapioca pearls.

  “Does that really count?” he asked. “I mean as coffee. I think I’ve eaten cheesecake with less fat and sugar.”

  “It practically is a dessert.” Gia smiled at him from across the table, taking a sip through the straw.

  She had a nice smile, he thought, with even white teeth. She was, in fact, a beautiful woman—and someone connected to the grisliest murder he’d come across in his career as a detective. It was something he needed reminding of…especially sitting here under an umbrella, sipping a couple of coffees together.

  “This place reminds me of my childhood,” she said.

  “You’ve been to Vietnam?”

  “No. Never there. But the whole French thing. I loved Paris. My mother and I used to travel a lot. I guess I miss it.”

  “Santa Ana, Little India, the Armenian Quarter, Little Tehran, Little Arabia,” he said, listing the melting pot that was Orange County. “All just a short car ride away.”

  “I know.” She stirred her coffee with the straw. “But life gets rather busy. Sometimes just a couple of miles away seem too far.”

  He realized he’d made the same excuse dozens of times. He wondered when it all started, the hamster-on-the-wheel existence. He had a small house with a mortgage. A new car. He even had an investment property he owned with his father—the same condo he planned to move Beth and Nick into when Beth finally got around to realizing she’d need to sell before debtors started in with the liens.

  Just like everyone else, he was working his ass off to salt some money away. God knows he’d taken a hit on the market. That Intel stock.

  His ex-wife hadn’t asked for a dime—he suspected she hadn’t wanted the connection.

  No, Laurin didn’t need him anymore. But everybody else did. His parents, Nick and Beth…they were all relying on him, hoping he’d keep solid and not melt away like the mirage his brother had turned out to be.

  “Everything will work out,” Gia said from across the table.

  He glanced up, hating that zing she’d just delivered to his gut. “What do you call that, exactly? Mind reading?”

  This time, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. One of my better tricks.”

  He smiled back, telling himself to rein it in. “It’s just a little…unnerving, you know?”

  He reached across the table, intending to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Letting her know we’re all in this together; playing good cop to Erika’s bad.

  Only, when he touched her, he felt that same shock of electricity.

  It was more subtle this time. He could almost believe he’d imagined it. But there was Gi
a, pulling her hand away, reacting.

  Without looking at him, she fell back in with her coffee, sipping the java through her straw as if it were the most amazing thing she’d ever tasted.

  Okay, he thought, leaning back in the bistro chair. Okay.

  “Do you have any children?” he asked, returning to his agenda.

  That was the reason he’d brought her here, away from Erika and the sterile atmosphere of the precinct. He wanted to draw Gia out, make her trust him. He knew that was something he was good at. In a pinch, he could be charming as hell.

  He and his partner knew their individual strengths. People tended to flirt with Erika and open up to him. How did Erika put it? You have that avuncular thing going. He’d had to look the damn word up afterwards: avuncular. Relating to or suggesting of an uncle.

  “I have a daughter,” she answered.

  “Really? How old?”

  Gia put the coffee aside and held back her smile. “Twelve going on thirty.”

  They both laughed.

  “I know what you mean. My nephew.” He shook his head. “Amazing what they think they know at ten.”

  “Amazing what they do know at ten.”

  Another round of laughter.

  He already knew from her statement a lot of personal information, like the fact that there was no Mr. Moon in the picture.

  “I have to believe girls are so much worse,” he said. “I mean, with boys, you just need to make sure they don’t kill themselves trying to see if they can fly using a bedsheet for a parachute. But girls…”

  She tapped her head. “It’s all in here and very complicated.”

  She flashed another smile. He could well imagine what Erika would think if she could see them now.

  Avuncular, my ass.

  “Why haven’t you worked with law enforcement before?” he asked.

  “Don’t take this wrong, but it’s difficult enough working with you and Detective Cabral.”

  “I give you that,” he said, nodding. “So why this time?”

  She shrugged. “My dream. It was…disturbing.”

  “That first day, you didn’t seem too disturbed.”