The Collector Read online

  Only, as it turned out, the money thing hadn’t been much of a challenge. David’s marriage had given him money to play with. Soon enough, he’d moved into politics. Not as a candidate, no way. Who the hell wanted some asshole looking into his tax returns? He was the puppeteer, pulling the strings behind the screen.

  The amazing part? That, too, hadn’t taken long to conquer. The whole thing turned into just another rubber-chicken dinner, with some blowhard sucking up the oxygen in the room.

  That’s when David started his collection.

  He’d learned pretty early on he had the power to make and break lives. The people who worked for him owed him their livelihood, and they were fucking grateful for it.

  So why stop there? Why limit his goals to the here and now? There was power to be found beyond what the sheep on this earth coveted. He just had to know who to pay to get it.

  He’d started by looking into secret sects—Freemasons, Rosicrucians—and for a while, he’d gotten off on the lure of being one of the chosen, an initiate in a secret society. But theirs was not the kind of enlightenment David sought. Fuck universal peace or cosmic consciousness.

  He began looking into more obscure sects, surprised at the number of powerful men willing to put on costumes and parade around, reenacting rituals from ancient Babylon and Egypt.

  But then David began to realize it was more than the illusion of supernatural powers that he coveted. He needed something more solid, a physical object of power.

  He started reading about psychic archeology, a branch of anthropology that used the paranormal to uncover ancient sites of archaeological importance. The more he learned about the discipline, the more David started to think, What about the artifacts themselves? Certainly, there must be objects of power that had survived through the ages, buried somewhere for him and his considerable resources to find.

  Sure, he’d hit a hiccup or two along the way—Owen being his number one pain in the ass. But it wasn’t supposed to be easy. Look at the search for the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. If it was easy, every sorry ass out there would have what he had.

  He looked again at his wife. There she sat, her bony butt swallowed by that sofa. She hadn’t moved since he’d told her he’d called Rocket, those bug eyes of hers just staring at him.

  Watching her now, he thought about all those nature versus nurture arguments. Maybe the only thing wrong with Owen was a case of bad genes.

  He heard the doorbell and Maribel, their housekeeper, answering the door. Meredith turned anxiously toward the entrance, twisting her wedding band round and round on her ring finger.

  If Owen looked like his mother, it was as if someone had taken a dim bulb and turned up the wattage. Shit, the kid could have been a model, he was that handsome. Tall, with blue eyes and sandy blond hair. David remembered Meredith having eyes like that once. Now her eyes were a flat, dead blue.

  Owen had been born with this condition. His eyes just didn’t blink. Something about the muscles of the upper lids being weak. The condition had been mild enough that they’d gotten away with cosmetic surgery when Owen was just five. There’d been a few follow-up surgeries, as well.

  Owen had to wear sunglasses all the time, even indoors. And he put drops in his eyes. David thought it gave his eyes a special gleam.

  Entering the room, Owen tossed his coat on the settee. He flopped onto the cushions and rested the heels of his Esquivel ankle boots on the armrest. Owen had good taste in clothes, leaning toward the more cutting-edge designers. He had the build for it.

  “I bought the most amazing piece of art today.” He glanced over at Rocket, who stopped near the door. “I don’t think Rocket approves. And Mom will have a seizure if she sees it.”

  He held his finger up to his lips and winked at his father.

  David could feel his stomach turn. The kid looked so fucking normal….

  He’d had a couple of drinks earlier, thinking to relax a little, maybe simmer down before Rocket hauled Owen in. It hadn’t worked.

  Slowly, his son’s smile faded. Those pretty blue eyes narrowed, giving Owen the look of someone searching for the nearest exit.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  David still had the newspaper on the coffee table, turned to the article about Mimi. With just the slightest tilt of his chin, he pointed out the Register.

  Owen stared at the headline for a minute, looking almost perplexed. David knew the exact moment his son realized where the conversation was headed.

  “You can’t think—”

  “Don’t be an ass, Owen. Of course that’s what I think! What else, for Christ’s sake!”

  Owen jumped to his feet. For an instant, he looked as if he might actually try to run for it. Instead, he began pacing across the room. He raked his fingers through those platinum highlights. “So every time a body shows up around town, you’re going to point the finger at me?”

  Rocket made himself scarce, not one to linger in these types of situations.

  “I think the connection is a little tighter than that, Owen. Mimi Tran was a psychic in my employ. Just like Michelle—”

  “Jesus Christ, are you kidding?” Suddenly, Owen was bent over, laughing. “Another one of your psychics, Pops?”

  Owen’s expression turned feral as he walked over to David. The younger man placed a hand on each side of the armchair, leaning menacingly over his father.

  “Do you know how stupid you sound sometimes? I have magic objects that make me all-powerful, all-knowing.” His tone was a solid imitation of David’s deeper voice. “You can hire a fleet of psychics and you’re never going to be God, old man.”

  “Don’t push me,” David warned.

  Owen narrowed his eyes, making them look almost colorless in the room’s dim lighting. “Who really believes that shit, Daddy dearest? Not anyone with half a brain. But you, you travel around the world, buying your collection.” He leaned closer, saying in a stage whisper, “You know something, Pops? I think even Rocket knows you’re a fucking head case.”

  David smiled up at his son. He could feel those martinis pumping inside him.

  He exploded out of the chair, taking Owen with him. He had him on the ground, pinned by the throat, before the kid even knew what hit him.

  “You’re calling me a head case?” he asked in a cool voice. “You killed Michelle. And now Mimi’s dead.”

  Owen flailed his arms and legs, trying to dislodge him. But David had a good twenty pounds of muscle on his pretty-boy son. He tightened his grip.

  “What happened with Michelle was different and you know it!” Owen managed to spit out.

  “You slit her throat! You drank her blood!”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  “I know what you are, Owen!”

  Before David could do any more damage, Rocket pulled him off. Meredith knelt down beside Owen, propping up her son. David shoved Rocket away, ready to take another shot, but Meredith held up her hand.

  “Stop it, David. You’re drunk!”

  Her voice, her tone. The world seemed to spin. He remembered Michelle’s sweet face—and his son sitting at the spa just outside, licking the blood off his hands.

  David had always wondered if he’d done the right thing, covering up for Owen. He’d owed Michelle better. But he’d been afraid.

  He walked over to his son, now cradled in his mother’s arms. He’s a monster…a freak, a voice inside David’s head whispered. He crouched down and looked into his son’s eyes, searching for the truth, believing in his heart he would know somehow if Owen was playing him.

  Michelle was different….

  Incredibly so, David thought. Unlike Mimi Tran, who’d been in her sixties, Michelle had been only twenty-three. Still, she was a powerful clairvoyant. He’d been seeing her for almost a year before things crossed the line from professional to personal.

  That day in the backyard, an eighteen-year-old Owen had confessed everything to David. Glassy-eyed and crying, he’d told h
is father it had all been a terrible mistake, Michelle’s death. They’d been having an affair behind David’s back. Only, Michelle had suddenly gotten cold feet. She wanted out…and she’d threatened to tell David.

  That’s when it happened. He’d pushed her up against the counter. He hadn’t seen the wineglass there….

  There’d been blood everywhere. She’d severed her carotid artery on the broken glass when he’d pushed her against the counter.

  One minute, I was kissing her…sort of forcing her, you know? Because I loved her and couldn’t think that she wouldn’t wantme anymore. Then she started making this gurgling sound in her throat. That’s when I saw the blood.

  David had made a quick decision then and there. Cover up. Make sure that the police wouldn’t trace her death back to Owen, putting Gospel Enterprises on the front page. But he always wondered if he’d done the right thing.

  He remembered thinking about those macabre trophies he’d unearthed in the backyard when the kid was only twelve. Despite decomposition, David was pretty sure he’d been looking at animal parts…something small and vulnerable that his son felt a compulsion to kill, maybe even torture.

  Now, he studied his boy, once again wondering what he should do.

  “Okay,” he said softly, almost to himself. He stepped back. “Okay.”

  He raced up the steps to his office. Once inside, he grabbed the remote. He waited for the mirrored door to open a crack before he sidestepped through. He punched in the code, waited impatiently as the drawer slid open.

  He counted again, as if it had been a bad dream. But the stone was still missing. There, on the black velvet where a small blue stone should have nestled, there was nothing but empty space.

  He began searching frantically. The stone. It had to be here somewhere. It had just rolled out of sight. The action of the drawer opening and shutting could have dislodged the piece from its velvet depression.

  He kept looking, feeling into the corners of the velvet lining. Next, he crept along the floor on his hands and knees.

  “Shit!” He sat back against the custom-built cabinets, trying to catch his breath.

  It has to be here!

  Only it wasn’t. And he knew it. He felt it in his gut.

  He forced himself to focus through the haze of the alcohol. Meredith was right: he was drunk and out of control.

  He’d already called his security guy, Jack. He was the best in the business, telling David long ago that he was being too cocky storing his collection in the house with such minimal security. David knew he’d fucked up, but he was also banking on Jack being good enough to find out what the hell had happened. In the meantime, David needed to think.

  He stared up at the drawers filled with his treasures. Each and every object was sacred to him. The thought of taking them somewhere else—someplace where they wouldn’t be readily available to him—it was almost too painful.

  No. He wouldn’t move his collection. Not yet. There was no reason to panic. He’d been careless, that’s all. This time, he’d listen to Jack, put in all the bells and whistles. Whatever Jack said he needed to keep his collection safe, he’d have it installed: motion sensors, cameras at every angle.

  He felt suddenly reassured. Sure, Mimi was dead; that in itself was a disaster. But why take the next step? Why assume a connection to Owen and Mimi just because his kid fucked up with Michelle?

  David pulled out his cell phone, punched in the number he knew by heart, a private number given to very few.

  “Sam,” he said into the phone. “We need to talk.”

  11

  Seven thought they were through the worst of it once they passed the Orange Crush—the sobriquet given to that special spot in Orange County where five highways converged, including three major freeways, the 5, the 22 and the 57. But no, there’d been a SigAlert on the 60, some jackknifed big rig. It took them over an hour and a half to get to Claremont and the five colleges.

  Seven was familiar with the Claremont Colleges, a group of universities that both stood alone and pooled resources. Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and CMC. His brother had been accepted to Claremont McKenna College way back when it had been named Claremont Men’s College. Pomona, too, offered him one of their coveted berths.

  Seven remembered how it had been in those days. Ricky was five years older than Seven. Watching him in high school was like watching one of those superheroes on television. His brother was bigger than life. He was a scholar and an athlete—captain of the varsity volleyball team and the debate squad. With Dad’s curly blond hair and big green eyes, he was a good-looking kid who didn’t have time for girls.

  And shit, did he have confidence. As far as Ricky was concerned, nothing was out of reach.

  Seven looked like his mother: brown hair, hazel eyes, stocky build. He’d ended up just under six feet tall, so if he’d ever had the discipline for a sport, it wouldn’t have been volleyball. He didn’t have Ricky’s height or dexterity.

  Seven’s father was a retired mechanic; his mother still worked at the senior center in Huntington Beach. He and Ricky had been raised in a modest middle-class home just a few miles inland from the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, a place where kids could still hike and fish and bird watchers hung out in fatigues with binoculars around their necks and telephoto-lens cameras on tripods. At least until they finally paved the place over and covered it with more million-dollar houses…a debate that had been going on for as long as Seven could remember.

  But here was Ricky, dreaming big. He’d graduated near the top of his class at Marina High, earned magna cum laude from Occidental College. Next, he’d tackled medical school.

  Seven remembered how proud his dad had been—a doctor in the family. No one like Ricky had ever graced the Bushard family tree. He was every parent’s dream.

  But even that hadn’t been enough for Ricky. He’d wanted the best—a house on the water, a trophy wife and a kid in private school. A yacht he never had time to use.

  Seven remembered the day he’d looked at his parents with that perfect smile and asked, “Do you know how many plastic surgeons there are in Newport Beach?”

  SoCal. The land of the surgically enhanced.

  For his part, Seven rode under the radar, having a hell of a good time smoking a little weed and downing Samuel Adams as his brother toiled. He’d graduated from high school…barely. He’d attended Golden West College, the local two-year community college, what his father referred to as UBL, the university behind Levitz, a furniture store on one of the main drags. Hell, if it weren’t for Laurin pushing him, Seven wouldn’t have gotten even that far.

  His parents, who thought for sure he was landing in jail on a DUI, had been proud when he’d graduated from the police academy—or more likely relieved. Their little misfit was growing up, heading into the real world of responsibility as a cop.

  But when his marriage broke up, the comparisons came again. He just isn’t Ricky….

  That’s what really blew about the situation. It wasn’t just his parents Ricky had failed. Seven had been proud of his brother. He had looked up to him. Depended on him.

  How does that happen? How does someone you know and love and respect just go fucking psycho on you? The good son—the beloved big brother—turned killer?

  “You okay?”

  He kept staring out the window, watching the bucolic town of Claremont roll on by. Erika and her damn radar.

  “Quick. Hand me a piece of paper,” he said, pretending to grab his pen. “I think I’m having a traffic-induced vision. That psychic shit could be catching.”

  “Like the flu,” she said wryly.

  Yeah, the trip had been a bitch, giving Seven way too much time to sit in quiet contemplation.

  When they finally reached the campus of Pitzer College, Erika parked in front of the administration building. After getting directions, they headed straight for the archaeology department.

  “Where did you hear about this guy, anyway?” he asked.

&n
bsp; “Lois.”

  Lois Banks was the guru of the precinct. As the watch commander, she knew just about everything about anything. If Lois said Professor Curtis Murphy was the go-to guy, as far as Seven was concerned, the man was golden.

  Walking down the hallway, Seven noticed how all these intellectual types had a thing about their office doors. Cute signs and photographs covered most, or cartoon strips like The Far Side and The Boondocks. To Seven, the hall looked more like a college dorm than an office building. Maybe the professors thought the artwork made them hip, one with the student body.

  But Murphy was different. His door remained pristine, bare of anything but his nameplate and office number. Interestingly enough, the look was that much more intimidating. Here was a man who didn’t conform—or just maybe didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other.

  Erika had said Professor Murphy was expecting them. But the closed door didn’t look too inviting. She knocked. Seven heard what sounded like a muffled curse coming from inside.

  After a minute, Erika knocked again, louder this time.

  “Come in!”

  Erika looked at Seven and shrugged. She opened the door, leading the way inside.

  Stepping into Murphy’s office was like walking into another world. Forget the clean lines of the door; inside was chaos. There was a long table filled with pottery shards and other objects covered in dirt. Shit, was that a finger bone? Shelves crammed with books, some stuffed in sideways, looked ready to blow like popcorn in a Jiffy Pop tray. Glancing at the equipment on the table, Seven couldn’t decide if the guy was getting some painting done or about to conduct major surgery.

  In the corner behind his desk, Murphy sat bent over an Apple notebook. One thing was certain: Indiana Jones, he was not.

  Seven could see by his waistline Murphy liked his chow. Short, with a hairline that was already beginning to say, “See you later,” he looked to be in his mid-to late fifties, and very scholarly. Glasses, pipe on the desk, jacket with leather patches on the elbows hanging from the coat rack, the whole shtick. Using only two fingers, the professor kept banging away on the laptop, ignoring the fact that the detectives stood at the ready.