Jonathan Kellerman: The Murderer's Daughter

Not much detail to the structure but an asymmetrical beamed ceiling, twelve feet at its apex, tossed in a little visual interest and created the illusion of more space. Even without that, Grace wouldn’t have minded the meager area; she was comfortable doing the mouse-hole thing.

Nurtured by memories of hiding in plain sight.

The house’s current market value neared three million bucks but that was a useless statistic; Grace had no intention of ever leaving. Nor did she intend to entertain visitors. Another reason not to waste time and money on interior decoration.

During the four years Grace had lived here, no one had intruded save for the occasional plumber, electrician, or cable installer. After initial friendliness, Grace avoided them by retreating to the deck and reading.

That hadn’t stopped one of the cable dudes who’d showed up last year — a surfer-type with a nasal voice — from flirting with her with what he thought was smoothness. She’d handed him a beer then propelled him straight out.

Tough luck, Hotdog.

Home was where the heart was and Grace’s heart was a hunk of muscle that worked just fine on its own.

Running a bath, she soaked in the clawfoot for a count of one thousand, toweled off, retrieved her briefcase, and checked her appointment book for tomorrow’s schedule.

Light day prior to vacation: six patients, three before noon, three after, all but one of them a follow-up. One newcomer who’d been apprised by her service that she was leaving soon but had made the appointment anyway. So maybe one of those ambivalent “consultations.”

Lying in bed, she planned tomorrow: Her morning would begin by peering into the soft eyes of a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Bev whose husband had died of a rare connective tissue cancer, the illness occupying most of their time together. He’d finally given up fourteen months after their honeymoon. Now newly engaged, her second wedding approaching, she’d be flying in from Oregon.

More than matrimonial jitters. Grace was ready for whatever came up. Check.

Patient number two was a sixty-four-year-old man named Roosevelt whose wife had been murdered by an armed robber while tending the couple’s South L.A. liquor store. Guilt was a big issue there, because the night shift had always been Roosevelt’s domain and Lucretia had taken over so he could attend a reunion with his high school football buddies.

The unfortunate woman had been shot in the head within minutes of arriving at the store. Six years ago. Roosevelt’s therapy had lasted three years. Grace knew the date of the murder by heart. Another anniversary.

Lovely man, Roosevelt, quiet, genteel, hardworking, Grace liked him. Not that liking mattered. She could comfort a wolverine if that’s what the job called for.

Session number three was for a married couple, Stan and Barb, whose only son had fatally slashed his own wrists. No tentative cry-for-help by Ian; this was a deep, artery-demolishing excursion that led him to bleed out quickly. Toward the end of the process, he’d staggered into the bedroom where his parents slept, managed to switch on the light, and gurgled himself to nothingness in front of the people who’d given him life.

Grace had obtained the poor kid’s psych records, found clear evidence of blossoming schizophrenia. So no clinical surprise, but that didn’t squelch the horror for Stan and Barb. Memories of what Stan called “sadistic etching.” That always made Barb wince and grow nauseous. Several times she’d rushed to the patient bathroom and vomited.

Of course there was nothing much Stan and Barb could’ve done to help the boy, his brain was deteriorating. But that didn’t stop them from tormenting themselves. It took just over two years for Grace to guide them past that and their sessions had thinned to twice a month. So far so good.

Patient four was Dexter, a young man who’d lost both parents in a plane crash. The usual small-craft disaster, amateur-pilot Dad at the helm of a single-engine, probable heart attack. Lots of anger to work through, there.

Five was a woman whose in-vitro-conceived only child had perished from a rare liver disorder in infancy. Grace didn’t want to think much about that one because kids got to her and she needed to preserve herself so she could be useful. If she felt she lacked expertise, she could call Delaware.

Last, and possibly least, was the new one, a man named Andrew Toner from San Antonio, Texas, who’d waited seven weeks for a slot to open up. Now that Grace thought about it, that was at odds with ambivalence, but who knew, she’d learn the details tomorrow.

What she did know was that it was a self-referral spurred, according to the info recorded by her service, by Mr. Toner’s coming across some research she’d published. Not the typical treatises on stress and coping Malcolm and she had churned out for years.

The piece Malcolm insisted Grace write alone.

Grace regarded that article — all of her publications — as ancient history, but a patient citing it told her something about Mr. Toner: good chance he came from a frighteningly rotten family.

Maybe all he needed was permission to cut off some toxic relatives. If so, not nearly as complex an issue as Bev’s or Helen’s or the arm gouger’s poor parents.

Grace could say that with authority.

Placing the appointment book back in her bag and still warmed by her bath, she shrugged out of the kimono and walked to the French doors opening to the deck. Turning off the weak bulb, she stepped out on weathered wood, stood bare and vulnerable as a newborn.

Taking in the murmured comfort of the tides as they rolled in, the swoosh of farewell as they embarked on the return trip to Asia.

A gust kicked up from the water. Sudden burst of energy from — Hawaii? Japan?

Grace remained on the deck as something other than time passed. Finally, she felt herself growing drowsy and made her way back into the house. She should’ve been hungry but wasn’t. Going to bed on an empty stomach was fine. She’d had plenty of practice.

Now, of course, an empty gut could be filled by a humongous breakfast. The following morning, how wonderful life was when you ran your own show.

Relatching the French doors, she got into bed, crawled under the covers, drew them over her head. Taking a moment, as she always did, to reach under the box spring and pat the reassuring hunk of dense black plastic resting on the carpet beneath the bed.

Her house gun, a 9mm Glock, just like the cops used. Unregistered and perfectly maintained, same as the .22. Most likely, she’d never need either weapon. Same for the twin S&W .38 revolvers she’d bought at a gun show in Nevada last year and secreted in the file cabinet at her office.

Nighty-night, beloved instruments of destruction.

Curling fetally, Grace slipped her thumb between her lips. Sucked greedily.

She rose at dawn, famished, watched through the French doors as a gray pelican dove for breakfast. Shorebirds skittered along the tide line. An intermittent dot caught Grace’s attention and she got up and wrapped herself in the yellow kimono and went outside.

Focusing her eye where the dot had last been, she waited. There it was again, a few yards north. California sea lion, drifting and submerging. Keeping a slow pace, lovely, entitled predator that it was.

Grace watched for a while, made coffee and drank the first of three cups while scrambling four eggs tossed with cheese, Genoa salami, rehydrated porcinis, and garlic chives. Buttering two rolls, she downed every greasy crumb. By seven thirty she was back on PCH, letting the Aston do its thing as she warmed herself with thoughts of the care she’d be giving all day.

Bev, soon to be married, was better dressed and coiffed and conspicuously more put together than the red-eyed young widow who’d first showed up at Grace’s office shaking uncontrollably and barely able to speak. This morning, those eyes were clear, alternating between the warmth of pleasant expectation and flashes of furtive heat that Grace knew meant guilt.