Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

When he’d said it, Grace had been riding him and she stopped and panic tightened his face. “Uh... sorry...”

“Is that a problem, Brendan?”

“No, no, no, no, no—”

She winked, offered the merest pelvic twitch. “You’re sure I’m not being too bossy?”

“No, no, no, I love it. Please don’t stop. ”

“Okay, just as long as we’re in agreement.” Laughing, she planted his hands on her breasts, showed him how to softly twist her nipples, and resumed rocking and rolling. Beginning slowly for her own benefit, then picking up speed. Brendan came seconds later. Stayed hard until she finished and came a second time.

“Excellent,” she told him, figuring he’d be good for another couple of romps. Five times with anyone was her max, more often she broke it off after one or two. No sense getting them too attached. Plus she bored easily.

She was up-front about breaking things off but refused to explain. For the most part, flattery and her best blow job took care of any transitional issues.

As Grace neared her twentieth birthday, she’d amassed enough credits to graduate a semester early and had produced a sixty-seven-page honors paper on cognitive processing that earned her a departmental distinction and a summa on her diploma. One of her psych profs, a gentle, thoughtful woman named Carol Berk who’d spent her professional life studying minuscule correlates of family structure, guided her to join the psych honor society, Psi Chi, nominated her successfully for Phi Beta Kappa, and suggested Grace remain at Harvard for grad school.

Grace thanked her and lied. “I really appreciate the vote of confidence, Professor Berk, maybe I will.”

But she’d had it with cold weather and self-importance and the tendency to politicize everything from breakfast cereal to reading material. She’d also lost patience with having to explain why she preferred not to attend social gatherings. Had overheard one too many of her alleged peers refer to her as “different” or “weird” or “asocial” or “autistic.”

On top of all that, she was beginning to tire of the shy boys, had found herself working harder to come.

But none of that really mattered.

She’d known all along what her next step would be.

As her junior year drew to a close, she phoned Malcolm and told him she’d be coming home for the summer. He and Sophie had seen her a month before, the second of their twice-yearly visits, and she’d hadn’t mentioned anything about returning.

He said, “No summer school this time?”

“No need, I’m finished.”

“Finished with your research?”

“With nearly everything. I’ll be graduating a semester early.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” she said. “Done, kaput. I’d like to talk to you about doing some research in L.A., and about grad school.”

“So you’ve definitely decided?”

“I have.”

A beat. “That’s terrific, Grace. Clinical or cognitive?”

“Clinical and I want to do it at SC.”

“I see...”

“Is that a problem, Malcolm?”

“Of course not, Grace. Not in terms of your qualifications, that is. With everything you’ve accomplished and the kind of GRE score you’re bound to get, any school will be happy to have you.”

“Including SC?”

Another pause. “Yes, of course, the department would certainly be pleased.”

“Interesting grammar,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“Not they will be, Malcolm. They would be. It’s conditional on something?”

“Well... Grace, do I need to spell it out?”

“If it’s something other than the obvious,” she said. “E.g., you and me, nepotism blah blah blah.”

“I’m afraid that’s it, Grace.”

“Are you saying your presence will disqualify me?”

“I’d hope not.” He laughed. “There I go with more conditional... I must admit, you’ve surprised me with this, Grace.”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why the surprise?” she said. “There’s no one whose work I admire more than yours.”

“Well,” he said. “That — that’s extremely gracious... you’re saying not only do you want to study at SC, you’re planning to be my student?”

“If it’s possible.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I have to say, it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in departmental meetings.”

Grace laughed. “Paradigm shift. You always say that they can be useful.”

He laughed back. “So I do, Grace. So I do.”

She wasn’t sure what he had to go through, but a month later, she had her answer. Formally, she’d be required to apply like everyone else. But Malcolm’s tenure and status and “other factors” made her acceptance inevitable.

Grace had a notion of what other factors meant: He wasn’t her biological father. So, officially, no nepotism.

That, she confessed, did tighten her chest a bit and make her eyes hurt.

But on balance, everything was working out just as she’d planned.

Grace’s catnap lasted the perfect twenty minutes. Reinserting the bright-blue contacts and re-donning the fluffed-up brunette wig, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, dabbed on extra deodorant, and reassured herself that she was Sarah Muller, Educational Consultant, with expertise in psychometric testing.

All that, and two guns in her oversized bag.

Leaving the hotel via the back door, she drove down Center Street, again passing the construction site. Still no activity and her psychotic pal was nowhere in sight. But a few high school kids were loitering in the park, for the most part tough-looking boys. Maybe they’d driven away the homeless men.

She drove to Lawrence Hall, arriving seventy minutes prior to her appointment with Amy Chan. That gave her time to find an ideal parking spot near the entrance to the lot across the street from the museum. Perfect for making a quick exit, plenty of time to scope out the front plaza.

The day was gorgeous and clear, cool air wafting gently under a stunning sky that matched her contacts. Off to the west, the Golden Gate Bridge was a flash of rust-colored brilliance. San Francisco Bay was a roiling pewter broth, chop whipped up by wind, frigid water frothing like freshly beaten meringue. Tugs and tourist boats and a few fishing craft rocked and rolled. On one of her visits, Grace had toured Alcatraz, wondered what it would be like to bunk down in a cell if you knew you could get out.

The plaza was spotless and nearly empty, just a couple of young shapely women who could be moms or au pairs, standing by as ebullient toddlers ran and jumped and cavorted across the open space.

Grace knew she’d never have children but, from a distance, she found kids pleasing and agreeable, not yet fucked up by life. In grad school, opportunities had come up to learn child therapy and she’d been required to spend three weeks observing at a preschool but had never opted to go beyond that. What she’d learned was that kids, even toddlers, were damn good at solving their own problems if so-called grown-ups didn’t intervene and impose their will.

She proceeded to the center of the plaza, was nearly butted by one of the little boys, a stocky mini-elf with a mane of long red hair, racing blindly and whooping with joy.

She smiled and sidestepped and one of the young women yelled, “Cheyenne!” The boy sped on, unheedingly.

Grace murmured, “Good for you, kiddo.”

Reversing direction, she exited the plaza, crossed the street, took a lovely walk up a pathway that snaked into the green hills of Berkeley.

She returned at one fifty-five. Professor Amy Chan was already there, wearing an outfit not unlike Grace’s: blouse, sweater, slacks, all in a monotone of navy blue.