Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

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 play 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.”