The Collector

by Cameron

  Later, she told herself. I can be honest later.

  Almost on cue, Stella coughed. Gia turned to find her daughter standing in the hall, watching them.

  “You have to go,” Gia whispered.

  He stepped outside, the motion almost involuntary. He had this comical expression on his face, as if he didn’t know what else to do.

  Gia shut the door. Leaning back against it, she faced her daughter.

  “Mom?”

  “Hush, darling,” she said, walking back to the kitchen. “We’ll be fine.”

  39

  Erika walked into the precinct, balancing her purse and a tray of coffee from Starbucks. She’d stopped on her way into the office for the peace offering, needing something to break the iceberg she was about to crash into, Titanic style.

  Seven sat at his desk, hunched over his laptop, studiously avoiding her gaze. Erika sighed. Okay, he was going to be a dick about last night.

  Theirs was a complicated relationship. That’s why Erika had decided to be dead honest with her partner from now on, the operative words being from now on. No need for some futile confession about Mr. Greg—Frank—Smith, the reporter from the Register, she figured. Not if she wanted a career….

  She sat down across from Seven and pulled out one of the Starbucks cups. She held it out for him. “Café Americano. Black.”

  He pushed away from the laptop and gave her a look. He shook his head. “A cup of coffee, Erika? Just that?”

  “Best I could do on such short notice.” She leaned forward. “Hey, I know. What if I let you call me the Amazing Supernatural Sleuth, like you’ve been dying to do? You know, ASS? Because I’ve been a bit of one lately?”

  He remained silent.

  “Wow,” she said. “Look who suddenly lost his sense of humor.”

  She put down the cup and reached inside her purse. She pulled out the file on Gia Moon, the one put together by the private investigator.

  She placed it on the desk in front of Seven. “That’s everything I have so far from Cedric. And, you’ll be happy to know, I called him off the case. You’re right. I am jeopardizing the investigation.”

  The reason being that anyone connected to the police, or working under their directive, had to follow all the rules and regulations as a cop—fourth amendment rights and such—which wasn’t likely to happen with Cedric Patterson, private dick extraordinaire. He was damn good at digging up the dirt, not so good about how he went about getting the job done. If they ever did have to take Gia Moon to trial, Cedric Patterson’s involvement could taint the evidence, making some defense attorney’s day.

  She watched her partner stare at the folder, frozen to his seat. She realized that he didn’t want to know what was inside.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

  “Okay.” She reached across and turned the file to face her. She opened to the first page. “So I screwed up. But since we already have the information, let’s take a look, shall we? Gia Moon turns out to be this really interesting person,” she began. “But not for the reasons you’d think. Not because she’s some famous psychic or this great artist. Gia Moon, it turns out, doesn’t exist.”

  That got his attention.

  Seven glanced at the file. Erika, being the patient sort, waited him out.

  Eventually, he motioned for her to slide the file back.

  “No social security number, no bank account,” she said, recounting out loud what the file would reveal. “No mortgage. She paid cash for that house. I didn’t even know you could do that in California.”

  Erika could see his body language change, the muscles across his back tightening. But still he kept quiet, just flipping through the pages of the report.

  “I checked with witness protection—just in case,” she continued. “Nada. Do you know how hard it is to hide from the government like this?” she asked, tapping the file. “To put it delicately, it’s freaking impossible. But here it is. The invisible woman. My question is, why?”

  She was thinking of her own foray into Google. How easily she’d discovered that she, Erika Cabral, was the lead detective on the Tran case. Even her phone number and address had been listed, for God’s sake. All of it there for the pillaging by little scavengers like Greg Smith.

  “So here’s this single mom—an artist—who is managing to do the impossible. According to all government sources—federal, state and local—she is completely invisible.”

  He slapped the file folder shut. “Last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.”

  “Not to mention, not the least bit suspicious.” Erika leaned over the table, getting into her partner’s face. “You want to hear my theory? She’s hiding, Seven. From someone—someone powerful. Someone dangerous. Maybe even someone who could be killing psychics.” When he looked up and met her gaze, Erika smiled. “And now she has a cop guarding her. She’s using you. And you’re falling for it.”

  “You know what, ASS?” he said, his voice on edge. “I’m a little confused. I thought I had a thing for my sister-in-law. Now I want a key witness in a case?” he said, sounding defensive. “Or do I want them both? Maybe I’ll just take anyone, even someone I can pick up at a bar?”

  She felt her face get red, and pushed back in her seat. She wasn’t about to ask how he’d found out about her nightly habits. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s none of my business. So how about you explain why you showed up at my place in the middle of the night?”

  She could see him putting it together. They were partners; they relied on each other. This wall between them, it wasn’t right.

  She smiled. She lifted her latte in a toast. After a few seconds, he picked up the café Americano and tapped it against her cup.

  “There’s more to my theory on your psychic,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, already feeling as if she were walking on eggshells. “That first day she came to the station, she wasn’t lying when she told us she thought she was next. But not because of the reasons she gave. She knows who the killer is. She needs him stopped—and she’s willing to risk exposing her own involvement to get the job done.”

  Erika gave him a minute. But she could see he needed a nudge.

  “So.” She took another sip. “What were you doing at her house yesterday?”

  He looked up and gave her the biggest smile. “Fucking her, of course.”

  She rolled her eyes, knowing that Seven would never do any such thing. That kind of screwup was completely within her province.

  “I kept waiting for you to bring it up,” she continued. “Say something like, ‘By the way, Erika, here’s the reason I raced out of a double homicide.’ Come on.” She stared at him. “Give.”

  The hard stare he gave her let Erika know he was through with the runaround.

  “She called me,” he said, “just a few hours before Gospel reported the killings. She said someone named Kieu, or who had a Q in her name, was going to die if I didn’t find her first.”

  “Jesus.” Never mind that he hadn’t made an official report. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Seven put down his Starbucks cup and shouldered on his coat. “It’s premature…and I have my own theories. I’m looking into something. Which reminds me, I need to be somewhere.”

  As he passed her, she grabbed his hand, stopping him.

  “Seven,” she said, now truly concerned, “what the hell are you doing?”

  Right then, his phone went off with that special ring. Beth always did have good timing.

  Without thinking, he turned it off.

  Erika stared at the phone in his hand in shock. He followed her gaze, suddenly realizing what he’d just done.

  It was the first time he’d ever cut Beth off.

  “We’ll talk later,” he said.

  Erika let him go, knowing to the depth of her soul it was the wrong thing to do. She should stop him, perform some sort of intervention.

  Fucking her, of course.

  “Miercoles,
” she said under her breath, repeating her mother’s favorite curse. The word actually meant Wednesday, but it was close enough to the real curse to be satisfying.

  Erika closed her eyes, weighing her options. When she opened her eyes again, she was staring directly at Seven’s laptop. He’d left it open on his desk.

  Just looking at it had her Catholic guilt working on overdrive. But there it was, within easy reach…with no one in the room to see her.

  She let out a deep sigh and put down her coffee. She stood and sat in Seven’s chair. She pulled his laptop toward her.

  “Dios, ayudame,” she whispered. God help me.

  She’d memorized his password about a month after they’d become partners. She’d watched him punch it in several times. It was LAURIN. His ex-wife’s name. He’d never changed it.

  “Such a romantic,” she said to herself.

  She clicked on the down arrow of the address line. Instantly, a list of the last Web sites he’d visited appeared. Erika scrolled down, seeing that the addresses were all associated with paranormal phenomena, including a few on psychic painters. He was conducting his own investigation, completely independent of Erika, his partner.

  Maybe this was how it had all started with her mother, Erika thought. How she’d been taken in by people just like Gia Moon. That first time with the espiritista “saving” her little girl’s life, making that personal connection.

  Half an hour later, she was sitting at her own desk. In her hand, she held a business card. She’d been staring at the same damn number since she’d sat down. By now she had it memorized.

  What were you doing at her house yesterday?

  Fucking her, of course.

  That big smile he’d delivered right as he’d said it, daring Erika to believe him.

  She put the business card in her jacket pocket and stood. Grabbing her purse, she headed out.

  She was thinking about her own nightly transgressions. About a certain reporter at the Register.

  The tabloids do it all the time…print an accusation and see what dross rises to the surface.

  That’s what Greg—Frank—Smith had told her. It reminded Erika of something her grandmother always used to say when she thought Erika and her brother were up to no good. Loosely translated, it went like this: When you turn on the lights, you can see the cockroaches scurry for cover.

  Erika was thinking that’s what this case needed, for someone to shed a little light.

  She drove herself out to Fountain Valley. It was a little paranoid for her tastes, but she needed to be careful. Whatever happened, she didn’t want this call traced back to the department.

  She popped the right amount of coins into the gas station pay phone. In just a few years, these antiques would become obsolete, what with all the cell phones glued to everyone’s ears. But today, this pay phone was coming in handy.

  “Get in contact with me,” she said, not bothering to leave her name or number. If the guy was worth his mettle, Smith would know who was calling. “And this isn’t about sex, you asshole.” She took a deep breath, hoping she was doing the right thing. “I have your story.”

  Carin Barnes rang the doorbell and waited for the front door to open. Gina Tyrell wouldn’t be happy to see her, but Carin couldn’t help that. Coming here was the next logical step. Really, she hadn’t hoped to get this far so fast. Apparently, fortune did favor the brave.

  When the door opened, Carin said, “Hello, Gina.”

  Gina leaned against the doorjamb. She crossed her arms protectively in front of her.

  “Excuse me. I forgot. I mean Gia,” Carin said in an ultra polite voice. “Gia Moon.”

  “Hello, Carin.” Gina opened the door. “Why don’t you come inside? Although, if I remember correctly, you were never one to wait for an invitation. By the way, I expected you weeks ago.”

  Carin couldn’t help just a small smile as she followed Gina out to what looked like some sort of garage studio. Once in the room, Carin felt her breath catch in her throat as she admired the painting leaning up against the wall.

  She walked to stand in front of the black-and-red depiction of the most recent killings.

  “Painting helps with the visions,” Gina said.

  Carin nodded. “Do you know where it is?”

  “It? You mean the Eye?” Gina shook her head. “Can’t help you. I hope the damn thing never surfaces again.”

  Carin could understand her anger. Gina had always hated her mother’s dedication to finding the Eye. Carin couldn’t imagine that after Estelle Fegaris died, Gina’s feelings for the artifact had changed for the better. She’d no doubt come to blame her mother’s death on her quest.

  “But you know who has it?” Carin asked.

  Nothing.

  “Ah,” Carin said. “Silence is golden.” She pointed to that half moon on the tongue of the victim in the painting. “It was a moon cake. Whoever killed Velvet Tien stuffed it in her mouth. You did well.”

  “Encouragement from you, Carin? What is the world coming to?”

  Carin ignored the sarcasm. The Lunites, those who kept Estelle’s dreams alive, would always be a source of pain for Gina. But before she could ask her next question, Carin found the answer herself, in Gina’s painting.

  She looked closer, seeing that, indeed, Gina had placed the primitive image of an eye inside the victim’s stomach.

  Carin turned to look at her and raised her brows in question. “You don’t know where the Eye is?”

  Gina sighed. “You know how it works, Carin. I have no idea what that represents. It could be a clue leading to a clue that leads to another clue…or it could be my imagination.”

  Carin frowned. “You have a powerful talent. Just like your mother.”

  But Gina shook her head. “I am nothing like my mother.”

  Carin sighed. “I meant it as a compliment. Now, how about some coffee?”

  “I was hoping you weren’t staying that long.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” She lifted up her leather satchel. “You and I have some business together.”

  Carin walked past Gina, heading toward the small kitchen they’d walked through on their way to the garage studio. “By the way, I take my coffee black.”

  “Shocker,” she heard Gina say under her breath.

  Gina didn’t need to voice the subtext: Like your black, black heart.

  Again, Carin let out a deep sigh. She didn’t expect their meeting to improve Gina’s opinion.

  40

  David Gospel stared down at the piece of paper on his desk. It was a perfect square, like one of those sheets used for origami. Even though it was spread open, it appeared crumpled, as if someone had grabbed it and crunched it into a ball—which was exactly what he’d done.

  When he’d taken the moon cake to his car, out of nowhere a kid on one of those mountain bikes had sped down the street. In that instant, David had felt exposed to the eyes of a ready witness…and he’d panicked.

  In one motion, he’d opened the trunk and dumped the moon cake wrapped in his handkerchief inside. The damn cake had rolled out. That’s when he’d seen the edge of the paper sticking out.

  When he’d stood over Velvet’s dead body, looking into those dead eyes as he pried the moon cake from her mouth, he’d assumed a piece of the necklace would be tucked in that cake—just like the bead stuffed inside Mimi’s bird. But that’s not what he’d found.

  Instead, a folded sheet had been forced into the moon cake. Once the kid had passed, David had taken the paper out and read the message with shaking hands.

  There was one word scribbled on the paper: Gotcha!

  Just that. Gotcha!

  Actually, it was quite brilliant, forcing his hand like this. No doubt, the cops would figure out he’d tampered with the crime scene. Soon enough, some CSI asshole would come knocking on his door, shoving evidence under his nose.

  He could just hear the district attorney during the trial on cross-examination. Tell me, Mr. Gospel, why did
you take that moon cake from the mouth of your dead mistress?

  Thinking just that—how fucked he was—he’d been so angry, he’d totally lost it. Somebody was pulling the strings, engineering his demise. He’d taken evidence from a crime scene, basically pointing the finger to himself as the killer.

  In another rash move, he’d balled up the paper and thrown it into the bushes.

  Which was exactly where he’d found it after the cops impounded his car and clothes.

  Once he was home, he’d spread the paper open on his desk. He’d spent a good hour just staring at it, realizing his mistake.

  He’d failed to see that whoever had left the note had written on both sides of the paper.

  The second message was eerily familiar: That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

  Mimi’s warning at his last reading.

  Someone knew entirely too much about his personal life.

  As surely as they knew that David would take that moon cake, whoever planted it there as a decoy most certainly had left something else behind. He thought about poor Velvet’s defiled body, her intestines popping out from the stomach cavity. He’d made a couple of phone calls. His source at the police didn’t have anyone inside the coroner’s office. But it didn’t matter. David would bet money that they’d find something in poor Velvet that he’d missed.

  He’d already called Rose Fletcher, one of the top criminal attorneys in L.A. She’d gotten him out of hot water before and he was counting on her to pull another rabbit out of the hat.

  Last night, he’d had a long talk with Rocket, who’d confirmed he’d been with Owen the entire time the murders had been committed, which was good. Surprising, but good.

  Only now, the only person who didn’t have an alibi was David himself.

  That which is invisible…

  As far as David was concerned, there was no one who could be that invisible. It was just a matter of time before he found the son of a bitch trying to destroy him. After that, David would be back in charge.

  He’d been thinking just that—you’re the man—when he felt a presence behind him. On edge, he jerked around.