Michael Prescott - In Dark Places

"I'll reheat it. My microwave skills are improving daily."

"I'm sorry about this. I shouldn't be too late."

"Take your time. I'm okay. Like the man said, everything's copacetic."

"Don't say that." She felt a stab of some emotion that was either anger or fear. "Don't use his words."

"It was only a joke."

"I'm serious, Meg."

"Okay, Mom. Okay."

Robin took a breath. "Sorry. I'm a little wound up."

"Well, you can chill. Feeble attempt at humor, that's all it was. Uh, you know I'm going over to Jamie's later?"

"That's tonight?"

"Yeah. Monday."

"Right, right. Not till seven-thirty, though?"

"Uh-huh."

"Don't worry; I'll be home in time to drive you there."

"If you get held up or something, I can take the bus."

"A city bus? I don't think so."

"We live in West LA, Mom. There's, like, no crime in this part of town."

"There's crime in every part of town. I will be home in time to drive you, and you will not take the bus. Is that clear?"

"You're kind of paranoid, you know that?"

"I'm a parent. A certain degree of paranoia is normal and healthy."

"You learn that in shrink school?" Robin shut her eyes. "I learned it in life."

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 .