The Murderer's Daughter

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Even at that speed, the DB7 was barely working up RPMs. Power poles zipped by like stripes on a curtain. Twelve cylinders whined in appreciation—finally you give me some exercise!—and Grace smiled. This level of speed felt like a natural state and besides, she’d flown this road before with her eyes literally closed, knew the bumps and turns and quirks, and if some highway patrol cruiser blue-lighted her, all the better, she’d be nothing but cooperative, pretend to pay attention to the officer’s tight-ass lecture, meanwhile she’d be watching from the shoulder as the bouncing car zipped by.

  But as she reached La Costa, the nanosecond blur that was her house, and continued to the Malibu Pier and Surfrider, there wasn’t a trace of law enforcement to be found.

  And now, by terrible attrition, only one set of headlights was behind her, maybe ten car lengths back. No longer moons, Grace saw them as eyes, now. Twin amber beacons of scrutiny.

  —

  She decelerated to seventy and the sudden bounce of the dancing car’s headlights told her it had braked precipitously, again. Pushing the Aston back up to eighty, she used its race-born agility to advantage, calling into service the performance-driving techniques Shoshana had showed her during an exhausting day at the Laguna Seca track in Salinas. Explaining to her that cars don’t go out of control, drivers do.

  So avoid braking except when necessary because braking and accelerating rocks a car like a cradle and at high speeds that risks serious loss of traction and if you absolutely must brake, do it briefly, at the apex of the curve, then accelerate.

  Fun stuff, then. Useful, now. Grace sped through Malibu’s western beaches, still hoping for a cop, but pleased as the bouncing headlights vanished.

  Then she hit a straightaway near the fenced sprawl of the public beach at Zuma and all of a sudden they were back.

  Gaining on her, coming right at her.

  She veered sharply onto the shoulder, not liking the grinding, gnashing noise that ensued, and praying the Aston’s low-slung underbelly hadn’t been damaged.

  Idling, she switched off her headlights, lifted her foot from the brake pedal to disengage the rear lights, and relied upon the emergency brake to keep the snorting beast at bay. Dark night, black car, she was sure of invisibility.

  The Aston continued to fight being caged but remained in place and now she’d be ready when the sedan sped by.

  But it didn’t. Had it caught on, somehow—picking up a glint of starlit glossy paint or chrome wheels or shining window?

  What had given Grace away didn’t matter, only the result: Her pursuer was speeding directly at her again.

  Releasing the emergency brake, she watched in her rearview, waited, and when the time was right, she turned the wheel sharply and hung a radical U that made the Aston fishtail on squealing tires.

  But it righted itself quickly and Grace had barely made it across the center of the highway and into the southbound lanes when a massive shape came barreling down from the north.

  During the seconds it took for Grace to speed out of its way, the semi she’d narrowly avoided sounded its Klaxons and roared by, enraged.

  Eighteen-wheeler, according to the cheerful sign on its flank, a company hauling restaurant produce. Less than an instant to read all that but somehow she had.

  She’d also absorbed details of the dancing car: dark, probably gray, blocky sedan as she’d theorized, maybe a Chrysler 300.

  Spinning its wheels in the dirt of the shoulder as it tried to back its nose out of an embankment. Too dark to make out the plate.

  Dark windows.

  Stock wheels.

  The sedan wouldn’t budge. The tires stopped spinning. A man got out, bulky, broad.

  Clutching something at his side.

  Grace raced away.

  —

  She adhered to the speed limit, reached Kanan Dume Road quickly enough, and turned off. That took her over the mountains and into the Valley, where she hooked up with the 101 East. Even at this hour, the freeway provided a fine social circle—a thin but steady stream of fellow motorists and, yes, there it was, law enforcement in the person of a CHP black-and-white in the center lane, trawling for taxpayer money, where the hell were they when you needed them?

  A few miles later, she spotted another patrol car lolling in a dark spot on the north shoulder.

  Try hassling me now, Sedan Boy.

  She continued completely through the Valley, stuck with the 101 as it transitioned to the 134. Crossing into Burbank, she kept going, exiting at Central Avenue in Glendale because she had no connection to that bedroom community. Within moments she spotted a tall stucco-and-green glass building that proclaimed itself to be a new Embassy Suites. Parking in the sub-lot, she took stairs up to the hotel lobby and booked a room with a businesslike desk-woman.

  Two rooms; the place was true to its name, with square footage larger than Grace’s beach house. Nice sterile hideaway, the welcome smell of chemically cleansed air, an amenities card boasting of high-speed Internet access, a flat-screen LCD TV, and a “cooked to order breakfast in our lush open-air atrium.”

  Grace charged up her laptop, stripped down, and got under the covers.

  She slept deeply.

  —

  Up at six a.m., alert but not hungry, she used the high-speed Internet access to locate a twenty-four-hour pharmacy 1.2 miles away on Glendale Avenue. A quiet walk was welcome for all sorts of reasons and she kept up a brisk pace, aware of her surroundings despite feeling no threat. Purchasing what she needed, she took a different route back to her hotel suite, did what she needed to do.

  At nine a.m., a thin, pretty, deeply tan woman with boyishly short dark-brown hair wearing a bit too much makeup entered the lush, open-air atrium and asked for a corner table that would afford her a wide view of the dining room.

  Once settled, she read two newspapers and enjoyed a hearty breakfast.

  The only distraction during her DIY hairstyle/dye job had been thoughts of Andrew coloring his thick locks.

  Once again they seemed to be linked.

  And something else: picturing him with lighter hair tweaked something in her memory. As if she’d seen him before. But of course she hadn’t.

  The whole point for him—the mess that had started it all—had been about finding a nonjudgmental stranger.

  At ten a.m. Grace got back on the freeway and left Glendale, this time heading west. Linking to the 405 South, she drove toward LAX, located an off-site, indoor, long-term parking structure. Nosing the Aston into a corner slot, she looked around to check for security cameras or someone else’s eyes before removing the box of .22 bullets she kept in a compartment concealed by the trunk deck—what had once housed a CD player. Into her purse went the ammunition, nestled alongside the little gun, along with her garage door openers, a Maglite, an old AAA map she hadn’t consulted in years, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a black baseball cap with no insignia that she kept for top-down beach drives.

  After taking a tram to the car rental lots, she walked to the Enterprise lot and selected a black Jeep Grand Cherokee with a thousand miles on the odometer.

  Her next stop was Macy’s in Culver City where she bought running shoes, rubber-soled flats, underwear, black cargo pants and stretch jeans in that same color, same for T-shirts, cotton crewnecks, and mock turtles. A thin nylon jacket a size too large came outfitted with four generous pockets. Finally, a cheap but sturdy brown suitcase to house all that.

  A stop at a discount food store on Sepulveda netted her all the trail mix on the shelves, caffeine-laced caramel chews, a case of bottled water, and two cheap disposable cellphones. She bought a third phone at a discount electronics shop run by a Persian guy, then beef and turkey jerky, corn chips, and dry salami at a deli near Washington Boulevard.

  Now she was ready for fight or flight.

  —

  At ten p.m., she was back in WeHo. Darkness worked to her advantage as she rolled along the streets near her office. After an hour of surveillance she was satisfie
d the boxy sedan was nowhere in sight. She’d already convinced herself two enemies was a likely scenario, so a second car was a possibility. Another half hour of meandering and circling revealed none—and no one—out of place.

  Her pursuer—Mr. Beefy—probably assumed this was the last place she’d return, especially after dark. That might make it the safest place in the city.

  She parked a block away from the cottage, slipped on the lightweight jacket and the baseball hat, and dropped the Beretta into the lower right-hand pocket.

  Taking a circuitous route, she arrived at her garden exit door, looked around before easing in, waited until the gate clicked behind her.

  The alarm was still set. No sign of disturbance.

  Keeping the house lights off, she used the Maglite to create a focused beam of guidance, proceeded to her office, and unlocked the massive five-drawer file cabinet she kept in the therapy room closet.

  In the bottom drawer at the back, hidden behind personal papers, was a strongbox from which she took the Glock and a box of 9mm bullets, plus all the cash she’d stored there, which came to just over thirty-eight hundred dollars. After a bathroom break, she exited through the front of the cottage, took a different route back to the Jeep, drove for a quarter hour, returned, and parked with a view of both doors to the cottage.

  Now she waited.

  —

  Nothing happened and she left before daybreak. Sitting there watching, eating jerky and caffeine candy and sipping water, had given her ample time to order her thoughts.

  She had no doubt that Andrew’s visit, brief as it was, had put her in the crosshairs of people with a secret serious enough to kill for.

  Atoner. Something terrible in his past. Violent. Males created nine-tenths of the bloodshed so probably a brother nephew cousin. Even a dad.

  So what to do?

  A vacation—any type of flight—wouldn’t solve anything. On the contrary, it would cut her off and leave her ill prepared and vulnerable when she returned.

  Her pursuer knew where she worked. Maybe where she lived, as well, because let’s face it, a fifth grader with computer skills could find anyone’s legal address.

  Nasty situation.

  She searched for something positive, finally came up with one: the message her service would deliver to all callers: Dr. Blades is out of the office for two weeks.

  Granting Grace fourteen days to get something done.

  Another person would probably contact the police—in Grace’s case, a brand-new cop contact.

  Detective, this is Grace Blades. Someone followed me last night.

  Really, Doctor? Who?

  Someone in what I think was a Chrysler 300, I didn’t get a good look.

  Did you get the license plate?

  No.

  Where did this happen?

  Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu.

  That’s sheriff turf. May I ask what were you doing there, Doctor?

  Driving home. I’m concerned they know where I live.

  They. We’re talking more than one person?

  They, he, I really don’t know.

  Did you call the sheriffs’?

  No…

  Every word Grace uttered would convince Henke of either duplicitousness or poor judgment. Or worse, mental instability, you know those shrinks.

  Recontacting Henke, period, could reverse any progress Grace had made at no longer being a person of interest.

  In the best of circumstances, the detective would believe Grace but have nothing to offer other than a mini-course on basic personal safety.

  Do you have an alarm, Doctor? How about a dog?

  So where to turn? Shoshana Yaroslav might conceivably be a source of wisdom, but two years ago she’d married an Israeli high-tech whiz and moved to Tel Aviv.

  Delaware could hook her up with his police contact but the guy worked West L.A. homicide and would regard her tale as an out-of-jurisdiction annoyance.

  The big question: What could anyone do for her?

  The answer: What it had always been.

  She was on her own. The way she liked it.

  The way it had been before Malcolm came into her life.

  The so-called formative years.

  Two months into Grace’s stay at Stagecoach Ranch, Ramona said, “He’s coming today.”

  “Who?”

  “Professor Bluestone.”

  They’d just sat down for breakfast, which was usually just Grace and Ramona because they got up earlier than everyone else.

  Rollo and DeShawn were leaving in a few days, some aunt had agreed to adopt them, and a new ward, a five-year-old girl named Amber, had moved in but she cried at everything and didn’t like to get out of bed. Bobby needed Ramona’s help to get downstairs and sometimes he needed to stay on his oxygen all day, so Grace rarely saw him at all.

  As she spread strawberry preserves on a piece of flat-tasting toast, Ramona repeated, “Professor Bluestone.” As if Grace had been expected to react.

  Grace ate.

  “You don’t remember? That psychologist I told you about? I know it’s been a while since I mentioned it, he’s been off in Europe delivering lectures. Teaching other professors.”

  Grace reached for the jam jar, found a whole strawberry, soggy and sure to be juicy-sweet, and impaled it on her knife.

  Ramona said, “Anyway, he’s coming today. Hopefully that’ll enrich your education.”

  During the two months, Grace had sped through the public school curriculum materials Ramona provided in weekly packets, finding everything super easy and pretty much boring but liking the fact that she could finish early and walk around the ranch and do her favorite thing, which was being by herself.

  There was lots of land on the ranch, more than she’d ever seen, and if you squinted and blocked out the wire fences you could imagine you owned everything all the way to the mountains.

  The fence didn’t stop small animals from getting through and bugs were all around, including gnats and spiders and sometimes mosquitoes in Grace’s room. Even when Ed came and sprayed horrible-smelling stuff, they stuck around. But she supposed the poison did a pretty good job of blocking larger animals like coyotes and the occasional mean-looking stray dog, which she only spotted prowling in the distance before sundown.

  Once Ramona came out while she was watching a big male coyote and stood beside her and the two of them watched the creature slink along, slipping in and out of some gray bushes, before disappearing into the big black pointy shadows east by the mountains.

  “Know why he’s out now, Grace?”

  “For food.”

  “You bet, this is their dinnertime, they got a schedule just like us only they don’t need a watch or a clock. Also, nobody serves them, they’ve got to earn everything that goes into their mouths. It makes them smart.”

  Grace said, “I know.” Edging a few feet away from Ramona’s still-working lips, she tried to crawl back into her private thoughts.

  —

  Sometimes Grace read books from the living room bookcase, mostly paperbacks about crimes and detectives and people falling in love then breaking up then falling in love again. Most of the new words she came upon she could figure out. Those she couldn’t, she looked up in Ramona’s big Webster’s dictionary. Sometimes she read the dictionary just to read it and discovered totally new words there. There was also TV. She could ask permission to watch but she rarely did because TV was almost as boring as the curriculum packets.

  Outside, off to the left side of the big house, was a dry-dirt area with a wooden swing set, a slide, a seesaw, everything set on rubber mats under a huge tree that scattered leaves all the time.

  Often Grace swung until Ramona called her in for a meal or something else, imagining she could fly. Occasionally she thought about letting go when she was at the top of her swing, wondering what it would feel like to fly and then crash, but she knew that was stupid so she forced herself to stop those ideas.

  Farther back from the pla
y set, behind what used to be the goat corral, gates still in place, was a big rectangular swimming pool that changed color with the heat, clotting with green slime when the temperatures rose no matter how many chemicals Ramona poured into it, muttering and turning grumpy.

  Green water meant it was warm enough to swim and one day, when the desert had turned shiny with heat, almost like metal, Grace asked Ramona if she could go in.

  “That pea soup? You kidding?”

  Grace said, “No.”

  “Yeah, right. I let you do that, the county could claim I endangered your health.”

  “There’s germs?”

  “Well,” said Ramona, “probably not, just that gooky stuff, that’s called algae, who knows what critters are breeding there.”

  “Algae’s a plant, ma’am.”

  “So?”

  “If it’s not poisonous it can’t hurt me.”

  “It could be poisonous.”

  “The poisonous ones are out in the ocean, they smell bad and they’re red.”

  Ramona stared at her. “You’re an expert on algae?”

  “It was in two-weeks-ago’s packet. One-Celled Organisms.”

  Ramona stared at her. “Good Lord, child.”

  “So can I?”

  “What?”

  “Swim.”

  “No way, not a chance. Take a look, it’s got that skin on top, you can’t see under the surface, something happens to you, I’d never know.”

  Grace walked away.

  Ramona called out, “You mad at me? I’m just doing my job, taking care of you.”

  Grace stopped and turned, knowing she had to keep Ramona happy because this was the best place she’d ever been fostered at. No one bothered her, she could spend so much time alone. She said, “Of course not, Mrs. Stage. I understand.”

  Ramona squinted at her, finally forced a smile. “Appreciate your understanding, Ms. Blades.”

  —

  The following day, Ramona caught Grace as she was leaving the house after study-time. “You still want to swim? I did some research and you’re right, there’s no danger, it’s just disgusting so if it doesn’t bother you and you stay in the shallow end with me right there…”