by Cameron
She stared up at those dark, empty circles on her mother’s face where there should have been eyes. She stood slowly.
Maybe it would always be like this, she thought. Maybe Gia would forever remain blind to the truth.
“Who killed you, Mommy?” she asked the blinded image. “Who took you from me and Stella?”
But the moment had passed. That passion she’d felt painting her mother’s image, searching for answers, no longer guided Gia. Instead, she felt spent and completely empty inside.
She went back inside the house. She knew Morgan would be worried. She’d been so angry when she left, almost accusing him of botching the session because she couldn’t believe the result. She should call him, let him know she was all right.
But once inside the house, she thought she heard something. A door closing softly?
“Seven?”
She walked to the front room, expecting to see him back—almost hoping that he’d returned for another round.
The door remained closed. There was no one in the entry.
Something crashed behind her. She whirled around.
On the floor at her feet was a framed photograph. The picture had fallen off the entry table.
The frame was facedown on the wood floor.
She stooped to pick up the photograph and turn it over. It was a picture of Stella. The frame’s glass had shattered across her daughter’s smiling face.
Suddenly, her instincts kicked in. She dropped the photograph and ran, heading for the door out to the street.
Too late.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a hand grabbed her foot. She could feel herself being dragged back, away from the door. She almost lost her balance and fell to the floor.
Like a vise, an arm squeezed her stomach, keeping her upright. A hand clamped over her mouth.
“Alone at last,” a familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Looks like your boyfriend didn’t stick around to save the day.”
Gia pushed back with all her weight, slamming Thomas against the wall, shocking him into releasing her. But again he grabbed her ankle, and she tumbled to the floor. She kicked and flailed her arms and legs, trying somehow to escape.
“You told me you killed her. You admitted you killed Estelle.”
He held her down, looking at her strangely, as if he didn’t understand. “Fucking crazy bitch,” he said. “Of course I killed her.”
He punched her hard across the face.
Thomas Crane stared down at Gia’s unconscious figure. Right beside her was a photograph of their kid in a broken frame.
“A girl. Fucking figures,” he said, standing. He crushed the glass farther under his foot, and then picked Gia up from the floor.
Seven peeled out into the street, pedal to the metal.
What if that’s what pushed him to it? All those years of being just that. Perfect Ricky?
Like he hadn’t figured that out? Like he didn’t know that his brother had boxed himself into a place where he couldn’t ask for help? Well, that wasn’t good enough. Not nearly.
When he’d read that dossier on Gina Tyrell, Seven couldn’t help but recall how totally inept he was at finding the right people to trust. First his wife, then Ricky betrays him. Now Gia. Three strikes, you’re out, right?
He could feel that anger building inside him, burning him up. He almost thought of turning around, having another go at it with Gia.
She thought she could read his mind? How about him giving her a piece of it without all that hocus-pocus bullshit.
She’d lied. She’d used him!
Out of nowhere, a ball came bouncing onto the street. He almost didn’t see it—or the little girl running after it.
He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, checking his rearview mirror with a prayer. He just missed hitting an oncoming Volvo as he swerved back to the right side of the street, around the little girl grabbing the ball.
He pulled over. The adrenaline had already been on high from his argument with Gia. Now he felt buzzed on it, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. Once the Volvo’s driver figured out no one was hurt, the guy took off, in a hurry to get somewhere. But Seven sat there, trying to get his breath back.
When he finally got out of the car, he found the little girl in the arms of her mother. The woman was holding her, crying over and over, “Thank God. Thank God.”
Seven kept his distance, letting the mother work it through—the possibility that, just then, she could have lost her baby. She was young and blond. The little girl, maybe around three years old.
Seven knew it was a trick of the mind—the little girl didn’t look anything like Gia’s daughter. But watching the lady rock her daughter in her arms, suddenly he remembered all those photographs of Stella decorating the walls in Gia’s house.
The woman looked up at him, tears flooding her brown eyes. “I only turned my back for a second, I swear.”
The realization came to him then, what it must be like never to be able to turn your back, even for a second. To always be wondering if Crane would find them…if he’d hurt them.
Gia would kill to save her daughter.
Seven was a cop. He knew what it meant to keep someone safe. Hell, he wouldn’t even hesitate if Nick’s life were on the line.
It’s what she’d been trying to tell him. Maybe he could never understand why Ricky had killed Scott—he didn’t have to. He just had to know that sometimes a person could be pushed to the limit of his conscience, goaded into doing the unthinkable.
“You okay?” he asked the woman. “You want me to call someone?”
She shook her head, still holding her daughter. “I’m okay. I’ll take her back inside. I’ll get my husband to baby-proof every single door.” She looked up at him, shaking her head. “I didn’t even know she could reach the knob.”
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.
48
“Jesus, 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. “Michell
e 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 bes
t 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.”
49
David 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?