In Dark Places

Chapter Ten

Megan Cameron hung up, shaking her head. She wasn't sure what it was about her mom. She was always worrying about not being there for her daughter, not spending enough time at home, all that stuff.

Probably it was overcompensation. Some single-parent guilt trip. Maybe her mom thought Meg blamed her for the divorce. Which she didn't. Nor had she ever tried to play one parent against the other, or ever suggested that she'd rather live with Dan.

That was how she thought of himas Dan, never as her father. He hadn't been around enough to be a father.

He was an artist, probably a good oneat least everybody seemed to think he was good, and his paintings, which were more like mixed-media collages, were displayed in galleries around Santa Barbara. Rich people paid major bucks to buy his originals and his limited-edition lithographs. He had even worked as a designer for a big hotel chain, flying around the country to supervise the decoration of lobbies and luxury suites.

He was talented, maybe a genius. He just wasn't a father.

He had unlimited time to devote to his projects. He could work in his studio, a converted guesthouse at the back of the property they'd owned, for forty-eight hours straight. He could go without eating or sleeping or bathing. When he got inspired, he got wild and frazzled. His creative spells weren't much different from an alcoholic's drinking jags.

Okay, that wasn't fair. Her father produced works of art. He wasn't some drunk on a lost weekend. But the point was, he might as well have been, because it didn't make any difference whether he was creating a new canvas or sleeping off a bender. Either way, he wasn't there for her, or for her mom either.

And then on one of his tripsit might have been the hotel gig, or some out-of-state gallery openinghe met a woman with the laughably chichi name of Cassandra, and he started fucking her, and, of course, before long Robin found out. There was yelling, followed by weeks of tense silence, until finally her mom came to Meg's room one night to tell her the marriage was over.

That was two years ago, when Meg was thirteen. Once the divorce was finalized, she and her mom moved from Santa Barbara to LA. Robin claimed there were better career prospects in a bigger city, but Meg knew she just wanted to get away from the memories and start over.

Dan visited occasionally, acting from a sense of duty to his daughteran extremely weak sense of duty, seeing as how he saw her only two or three times a year. It wasn't like Santa Barbara was a million miles away. Apparently a two-hour drive was too big an effort for a busy creative genius to make.

She had no problems living with her mom. She just wished Robin would stop worrying so much and start treating her like an adult.

She sighed, studying herself in the bedroom mirror. She had changed out of her despised school uniform into jeans and a T-shirt. A long fall of blond hair framed her suntanned face. Despite her protests about granola bars for breakfast, she had so far avoided any major breakouts of acne, and she'd shaken off her baby fat last year. She was frequently mistaken for an eighteen-year-old. Visiting the USC campus, she had passed for a freshman.

She was, for all practical purposes, an adult. Everyone but her mom saw it.

The intercom buzzed.

Her reflection frowned with a who-could-this-be expression. UPS or FedEx, maybe.

She left her bedroom, went downstairs into the foyer where the intercom control was located, and keyed the microphone. "Yes?"

"Guess who?" a familiar voice said.

She didn't answer. She couldn't believe he was here. He had never come to her home.

"You there?" the voice crackled.

Still without reply, she pressed the button that unlatched the front gate. Then she opened the door and watched him stroll through the courtyard of the condominium complex. He was wearing a business suit, as usual.

"Get inside," she hissed. "Hurry up!"

He obeyed, but with a wry smile that mocked her worries. When he was in the condo and the door was closed, she turned to him, speechless.

"Surprised?" he said with a smile that showed that the question was rhetorical.

"What are you doing here?"

"Visiting you."

"That's really stupid, Gabe. Robin"

"Is at work."

"Somebody could see you."

"They're ail at work, too."

"No, they're not. Some of them are retired or they work at home. They could be looking out the window"

"They still wouldn't see me. I'm invisible when I want to be." He fluttered his hand in a magician's wave. "I cast no shadow."

"Be serious. There are rules. We can't screw around like this."

"I thought screwing around was the whole point." He pulled her into his arms and soothed her with a kiss. "Don't fret, Meg. Nobody saw anything. This is LA. Nobody ever sees anything."

Meg sighed, relenting. "I guess you're right. I mean, I don't want to get all uptight. One paranoid obsessive in the family is enough."

"Meaning?"

"Robin." She always referred to her mom that way in conversations with Gabe. It just sounded more adult. "She's kind of overprotective."

"That's a parent's prerogative."

"You sound just like her."

"I'd better quit before I get in any deeper. So is there anything to drink in this dump?"

She punched him lightly on the arm for the "dump" remark, then led him into the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and helped himself to a bottle of beer.

"Hey," she asked, "you have any kids?"

He twisted off the bottle cap. "What makes you ask?"

"That stuff you said about being a parent."

"That stuff was just something to say. Didn't mean anything."

She noticed he hadn't answered her question. No surprise there. Gabe never told her anything about his personal life. He didn't wear a wedding ring, so she liked to think he wasn't married. He could be taking it off, though.

All she knew about him was that he was in law enforcement. Could be LAPD or Sheriff's Department or FBI. He'd never even told her his age, though she guessed he was about forty. She couldn't press him for the information since, after all, they both knew that age didn't matter. That was the whole basis of their relationship. If age mattered, she ought to be seeing one of her classmates. But her classmates didn't interest her. She couldn't talk to them, couldn't relate to them at all. They treated her like a girl. With Gabe, it was different. With him, she was a woman.

A memory floated back to her. Her own words, spoken defiantly. You kill women.

And his answer: No. I kill girlslike you.

"Jerk," she whispered.

"What was that?" Gabe looked up from his beer.

"Just amp; thinking of someone."

"Should I be jealous?" His smile told her that the idea was a joke. For a moment she wished she could make him jealous. She could invent a suitor, see how Gabe reacted. But she'd never been any good at games like that.

"No," she said. "It was this guy I met one time at Robin's office. This psychopath."

"You don't have to be a psychopath to see a psychiatrist."

Gabe handed her the beer bottle. She hesitated, then drank from it.

"I know that. This guy was, though. He's a serial killer. The one who killed high school girls. Justin Gray."

"Robin's trying to rehabilitate him?"

"Seems like a long shot, huh?"

"The longest. How the hell did you meet him, anyway?"

She took another swallow of beer. "It was about a month ago. I got out of school early, hitched a ride with a friend. He dropped me at her office. I thought she'd be happy to see me, but she, like, freaked. Wanted to get me out of there before the guy arrived. She called a cab, but he got there first. They brought him in a prison van. In handcuffs, with armed guards and everything. And he saw me."

"He say anything to you?"

"Nothing much."

This was untrue. They had exchanged more than a few words in the waiting room of Robin's office, the killer named Justin Gray staring down at her from his height of six foot one.

"Well," he'd said with a cool smile, "what've we got here? Catholic schoolgirl on a field trip?"

The words had angered her. Without thinking, she snapped, "Shut up. You don't know me."

"I know the type."

"Well. I know your type."

"Meg" her mom began, then stopped herself. Clearly she hadn't wanted Gray to know her daughter's name.

"Meg, huh?" Gray said. "Short for Margaret? Marjorie?"

She ignored the question. "You don't scare me. I know all about you."

"Bullshit. You don't know nothing. I ain't exactly bedtime-story material for little girls."

"You're Justin Gray."

"Hey, you do know me. Cool. It's always nice to be recognized by a fan."

"You're a psycho. And you'll always be a psycho. I don't care what my mom does for you."

"That's enough," Robin cut in.

"Your mom?" Gray smiled. "Hey, what d'you know? Can't believe I missed the family resemblance. Here I thought you were just another screwed-up Angeleno getting her head shrunk."

"Take him inside," Robin said to the deputies.

"Stand aside, miss," one of the deputies told Meg, but she stood her ground, blocking their path.

"I don't need my head shrunk," she said staunchly. "I'm not crazy. You are. You kill women."

"No I kill girlslike you."

Her mom tugged at her. "Get out of the way."

"They weren't like me," she told Gray. "I would've killed you if you'd ever touched me."

Gray smiled at Robin. "She's a spitfire. I could have some big fun with her."

"Shut up!" Robin yelled, losing it. She pulled Meg away, and the deputies led Gray forward, into the office.

"Don't sweat it. Doc." Gray hadn't lost his smile. "Everything's copacetic."

Meg had never heard that word in conversation before, and she had been forbidden to use it ever since.

"So what's he like?" Gabe asked, leaning on the kitchen counter.

Meg shrugged. "Nutcase."

"Some of these guys can be pretty charming."

"Not him."

"He scare you?"

"No."

"It's okay to be scared, Meg."

"He didn't scare me. He pissed me off."

Gabe laughed. "Justin Gray pissed you off."

"Like I said, he's a jerk. Would've liked to"

"What?"

"I don't know, punch his face."

"I'm not sure I see you as the warrior-princess type."

"I was thinking more along the lines of vampire slayer."

"I don't see you that way either."

"How do you see me?" She felt her mouth slide into a seductive smile. She wasn't used to drinking beer. It was going to her head.

"I see you"he came forward and draped his arms around her waist"as a beautiful and sensitive young woman who shouldn't let a creep like Justin Gray get under her skin."

There was that word she loved to hear him say. Woman. She was a woman, whether her mother realized it or not.

A thought occurred to her. "Were you part of the serial-killer task force?"

"Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. I can tell you about the case, though, if you want to hear it."

"I do."

"On second thought, it might give you bad dreams."

"I don't get bad dreams."

"Well, you know the basics, I guess. Like how he specialized in abducting and killing teenage girls."

"How did he amp; do it?"

"Kill them? Execution style. Single gunshot to the head. Twenty-two-caliber round, mashed up so badly when it penetrated the skull that you couldn't even make a ballistics match. Death was instant. Cerebral pulpefaction, the coroner calls it. Midbrain disruption. Those are fancy ways of saying that the slug turned the victim's brain to ground chuck. Bang, lights out. She never even saw it coming."

It chilled her to hear him speak of murder so coolly, but she supposed all cops were like that. "At least it was quick," she said.

"At the end, sure. But he kept them prisoner for a while, about four, five hours usually, before the big sendoff."

"Did he amp; rape them?"

"Nah. No penetration."

"So what did he do with the girl during the four hours?"

"He's never said. Talked to her, maybe. Or maybe he just let her sweat. Big fun, huh? The clock's ticking, she's waiting, praying, and the time just crawls by."

She wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more, but if she asked him to stop, it would be a display of weakness. She never allowed herself to be weak around him.

"Why did he do it?" she asked. "Just for kicks?"

"If you want to know his motive, you're asking the wrong person. Even the shrinks can't figure out a serial killer. Well, maybe your mom can."

"Maybe I'll ask her."

"You should. I'll bet she's got a theory. Shrinks always have theories. And your mom's pretty sharp. She might have a handle on Justin Gray."

He reached out and touched Meg's long blond hair, stroked it.

"Bet he thinks about you in his cell," Gabe whispered.

"Stop amp;"

He drew back, studying her face. "Whoops. I shouldn't have said thatany of it. It's got you all worked up."

"I'm okay."

"You don't need to hear about that kind of craziness."

"I think I could use some craziness in my life. My boring, predictable, sheltered, overprotected life." She smiled up at him. "You know, as long as you're here and we've got the place to ourselves amp;"

"You're not worried about Robin?"

"She's a workaholic. Obsessive-compulsive type. Goes along with her paranoia. Won't be home till after dinner."

"She seeing Justin Gray today? That why she's working late?"

"No, today's Monday. She sees him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She must have some other thing going on. She's always busy, you know. Always on the go."

"She should learn to loosen up." He kissed her. "Have some fun. Enjoy life." He kissed her again. "Stop and smell the coffee."

Meg giggled. "She really should. She doesn't know what she's missing. You know, my room's just upstairs."

"I'd like to see your room."

"I thought you would."

They left the kitchen together. Meg thought she'd been wrong to ask him if he had kids. His private life was his business. She didn't need to know anything about it. She didn't even need to know his last name.

Gabe was enough. It was the name of an angel. Wasn't it?