The Collector

Meredith kept staring straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

“Hiding. Like a coward.”

Her head snapped around. She gave him a venomous look. Only for Owen did she ever dare put up a fight. “Owen is working. You should know—he does work for you, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t keep track of every employee, Meredith.”

Of course he’d called the Newport Beach offices. It was the first thing he’d done on the drive home. According to his assistant, Owen was conveniently out. An art opening for some friend down in Laguna.

David remembered throwing the cell against the dashboard, losing it. He could still see that image of Mimi in his head, her photo in the paper bringing back thoughts of Michelle and her death.

When they’d first started taking Owen to Dr. Friedman, he’d explained how Owen had somehow gotten it all mixed up in his head, the collection thing. Because of the stories David had shared with his son. Apparently, the world of the occult did not make for good bedtime conversation.

Owen had been too young to understand where his dad was coming from. In his sessions, he kept talking about the Moon Fairy. When Dr. Friedman asked David what that meant, he’d feigned ignorance. But he knew.

The Moon Fairy was one of several bedtime stories that David had shared with his son. Like Gilgamesh, the Moon Fairy was about a man’s quest for immortality. In the tale, a magician offers to make an elixir for the king that will make him immortal. For his potion to work, the magician would need 999 of the youngest and most beautiful children of the kingdom. The magician assures the king of the elixir’s success if the king also includes his own daughter. But the girl’s mother, the Moon Fairy, saves her by turning the girl into a rabbit and taking her to the moon.

David didn’t have a clue what the big deal was, but he’d kept quiet, knowing that Dr. Friedman would probably start blaming him again for all the kid’s problems. Like it was some kind of child abuse to tell Owen a story?

David knew he’d made mistakes, sure. Losing his temper and punishing Owen. And maybe he had kept the kid a little on edge with his tales about the occult, sometimes using his knowledge as leverage to put Owen in his place. How was that any different than the stories parents told about the Bogeyman? But Dr. Friedman explained how that, too, had messed with Owen’s psyche. Funny thing, how it was always the parents’ fault.

That’s when David realized Dr. Friedman was just like everyone else, completely full of shit. Back then, they hadn’t made the connection between Owen’s eyes and any psychological condition. Still, David had his own theories about his son’s twisted behavior and how to handle it.

Up until this morning, he’d thought he’d done just that. Neutralized the threat. David clenched his jaw. How could Rocket have let him down?

“Don’t you want the drink?” Meredith asked.

For a moment, he’d actually forgotten she was there. He took a long, hard look at her, the mother of his child.

He tried to remember who she’d been all those years ago. A feisty and elegant woman educated at Smith College back East, she was the consummate diva, the only child of Judge Martin Wescott, a man who held more than a little influence in this town.

David had never loved Meredith, true, but he’d respected her. Back then, he’d believed she was a great choice as a life partner, someone who could reign supreme among the pseudo society of Orange County, the famed OC.

Well, he couldn’t have been more wrong. And God, did he hate her for it.

He picked up the martini and ceremoniously placed it in front of his teetotaler wife. “You drink it,” he said, leaning forward menacingly. “You’re going to need it, darling.”

It was all he had to say. Almost a silent boo! Meredith jumped to her sensible Cole Haan loafers and slid the martini glass back onto the tray. She sloshed vodka over the sides of the glass the whole way to the door.

“My wife,” he said, almost laughing out loud. How many other things had she fucked up in his life?

He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted to the core. He needed to regroup, call Rocket, his right-hand man, and get him back on the job with Owen. David didn’t have the luxury to sit here and feel sorry for himself.

He stood and punched the code into the remote once again. He walked back inside the vault as the door whooshed open. Maybe he’d always known Owen wasn’t cured. That it was all an act, Owen showing up from his travels abroad all repentant and asking for another chance.

With a sigh, David braced himself over the opened drawer, staring at the tablet and necklace housed there with such loving care, realizing that he’d need to start over now that Mimi was dead. Which meant calling Sam.

“Shit.”

He was about to close the drawer, lock up tight and take Meredith up on that martini, when something caught his eye. The pattern of the beads circling the Eye, the central crystal…he hadn’t realized it before.

He looked closer now, his heart stopping, just stopping.

There, at the back of the necklace. Was a bead missing?

He looked closer, counting quickly. He knew exactly how many beads should be circling the Eye: twelve. Only, no matter how many times he counted, he came up one short.

Shit. Shit!

He couldn’t catch his breath. He thought of Mimi Tran’s last prediction. All that crap about the danger of invisible things or something like that. He hadn’t paid the least attention, focused only on that slight glimmer of life she could bring to the Eye when she held it.

Like a blind man, he patted the black velvet liner, as if indeed the missing bead had somehow become invisible. It had to still be there, safe and waiting.

The floor seemed to drop out from under him. His knees hit the carpet as he grabbed for the open drawer to stop himself from careening face-first to the ground. His chest felt tight and hard and heavy, like cement. He thought he might be having a heart attack.

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

Those had been Mimi’s last words to him, he was almost certain of it. Like all of her prophecies, it was cryptic, something that would require careful interpretation.

That’s what he’d paid Mimi to do. See the future. Help him in his quest to find that precious path to immortality.

Only, Mimi was dead now and a precious piece of the Eye was missing. Soon enough, the police would come a-knocking, a deadly distraction when he needed all his concentration.

The fact was, David Gospel didn’t fear anything as mundane as the police arriving with a search warrant.

If only….

5

The precinct in Westminster wasn’t much. After the clock tower and its Tudor splendor—a tribute to the city’s English namesake—the landscape degraded into utilitarian government offices. Seven and Erika worked for the Crimes Against Persons unit.

With a population just under ninety thousand—nearly forty percent Asian—the city averaged two murders a year. Seven and Erika were the only homicide-robbery detectives. Given the city’s budget, they didn’t have the luxury of limiting their caseload to murders like Mimi Tran’s. Homicide-robbery shared space with family protection and the gang enforcement unit, the idea being that, during major investigations, everyone came together to work as a team.

Which didn’t usually include the mayor. Unless, of course, the case landed on the front page, with the potential of being there for a nice, long stay.

Currently, the post of mayor was held by a woman with the unfortunate name of Ruth Condum-Cox—Dr. Ruth (with a nice long roll of the R, just like the sex therapist and talk-show personality), but only when she wasn’t around to hear that quaint little sobriquet.

Seven had often thought that if your name was Condum, you should probably have the presence of mind to steer clear of a man named Cox. But not Dr. Ruth. She’d taken it to the next level and hyphenated.

But then what did he know? Memorable name like that? It might just work on a campaign poster.

Ruth Condum-Cox had a face that said she should lay off the plastic surgery. Hard to tell her real age, but she was simulating her late fifties pretty well. She’d made her money in real estate and favored power suits. She’d run on a tough-on-crime platform, giving her more than a few friends on the force, including the chief of police. Chief Flagler now hovered over Seven, acting like the Tran case was one hot potato he wanted served on someone else’s plate.

“The last thing we need is to let a case like this put Westminster on the map,” Condum-Cox said, jabbing her finger at the newspaper. “Look what Scott Petersen did to Modesto, for Christ’s sake. Not to mention Michael Jackson and that fiasco. Jesus, the overtime alone will kill us.”

Seven looked over at Erika. Day two into the Tran investigation and they were already getting heat from the brass to wrap things up?

“Mimi Tran had no gang affiliations that we know of.”