The Collector. Cameron Cruise

that, according to legend, had been given to Gilgamesh by the wild man Enkidu, magical objects Mimi Tran, with Sam Vi’s connections in the illegal trade of artifacts, had vowed to help David find.

      But now Mimi was dead.

      “Fucking Owen,” he said, cursing his son.

      The problem, of course, was that this had all happened before. Another woman, a psychic, just like Mimi. Seven years ago, the police had come to David’s door with a search warrant. They’d turned the place upside down, looking for their evidence, finding nothing. David had made damn sure of it….

      Owen had been eighteen years old—old enough, David had hoped, to cover his tracks. But no. He had found Owen sitting next to the spa in back of their Newport home, acting for all the world as if nothing was wrong.

      Only, the kid had been licking blood off his fingers.

      Instinctively, David knew the blood wasn’t Owen’s. Unfortunately, there’d been a hell of a lot of it. The asshole had tracked it through the house…his car had been filthy with it. The cleanup had been a bitch.

      Luckily, David had discovered his idiot of a son before the cops could get their hands on him.

      Seven years ago, David had thought he was in the clear, siccing his bulldog lawyers on the city, threatening to sue whoever had the balls to point the finger his way. Shit, he’d brought down more than one career in that battle.

      And now the nightmare was starting all over again? No way. No fucking way.

      There came another tap at the door, the sound so meek he would have missed it if the room hadn’t been perfectly quiet. With a sigh, he punched in the code to shut the mirrored door to the vault.

      “Come the fuck in, Meredith.”

      Like a good servant, she opened the door and let herself in, leading with her offering: a tray holding a martini glass and shaker. Jesus, the woman had timing.

      She gave him a nervous smile. “I thought you might like a drink.”

      “Really.” His wife didn’t drink, but she was good at peddling the stuff. Especially at times like this. She was the family’s anesthesiologist, dispensing her drugs to numb away the world.

      She moved soundlessly to put the tray down on the glass coffee table before the leather sofa where he sat. She poured the martini from the shaker into the glass and sat down, leaving plenty of space between them.

      “You’re wrong about Owen.” She smoothed the skirt of her dress over her knees and folded her manicured hands neatly on her lap. In another life, Meredith had sported designers like Prada. These days, her simple print dresses looked more like something she’d picked up at Wal-Mart.

      “Owen has made mistakes,” she continued, “but we’re his parents, David. We need to forgive and forget. He’s different now, a changed man since his missionary work.”

      She didn’t dare look at him as she spoke. Instead, she stared ahead, giving him a view of her profile. His wife had a perfect nose, courtesy of a plastic surgeon. Again, another life…the one they’d lived before Owen.

      David knew all parents wanted to believe the best of their child. He himself had fallen into that trap. He’d given Owen every advantage, right? What more could he have done?

      But then comes the day when a parent realizes the truth. Their world falls apart, and the truth hits them square between the eyes.

      For David, a master collector, that day had come long ago. The day he’d finally realized that his son, his perfect and beautiful little boy, had started a collection of his own.

      Owen had been ten years old. It still turned David’s stomach, a thought of those bloody bits and pieces he had found buried in the tin box out in the rose garden. When he’d confronted Owen, the kid had just stared up at him with those strange, unblinking eyes.

      Even after that, David made excuses. He told himself it was just some silly mistake, those bloody pieces. He had tried to share a few stories, and the boy had become confused. David and Meredith discussed the situation with Owen’s psychiatrist, someone they could trust to keep a secret. The doctor had concurred. His son wasn’t dangerous. Just misguided.

      Dr. Friedman explained that David’s temper didn’t help. But there David might disagree. Beating the crap out of Owen may not have helped his son’s condition, but is sure as hell made David feel better.

      For a while, it seemed as if things were going to be okay. Until the day Owen turned eighteen and the cops showed up at their door asking about Michelle Larson.

      “Where is he?” David asked now, not touching the drink.

      Meredith kept staring straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

      “Hiding. Like a coward.”

      Her head snapped around. She gave him a venomous look. Only for Owen did she ever dare put up a fight. “Owen is working. You should know—he does work for you, doesn’t he?”

      “I don’t keep track of every employee, Meredith.”

      Of course he’d called the Newport Beach offices. It was the first thing he’d done on the drive home. According to his assistant, Owen was conveniently out. An art opening for some friend down in Laguna.

      David remembered throwing the cell against the dashboard, losing it. He could still see that image of Mimi in his head, her photo in the paper bringing back thoughts of Michelle and her death.

      When they’d first started taking Owen to Dr. Friedman, he’d explained how Owen had somehow gotten it all mixed up in his head, the collection thing. Because of the stories David had shared with his son. Apparently, the world of the occult did not make for good bedtime conversation.

      Owen had been too young to understand where his dad was coming from. In his sessions, he kept talking about the Moon Fairy. When Dr. Friedman asked David what that meant, he’d feigned ignorance. But he knew.

      The Moon Fairy was one of several bedtime stories that David had shared with his son. Like Gilgamesh, the Moon Fairy was about a man’s quest for immortality. In the tale, a magician offers to make an elixir for the king that will make him immortal. For his potion to work, the magician would need 999 of the youngest and most beautiful children of the kingdom. The magician assures the king of the elixir’s success if the king also includes his own daughter. But the girl’s mother, the Moon Fairy, saves her by turning the girl into a rabbit and taking her to the moon.

      David didn’t have a clue what the big deal was, but he’d kept quiet, knowing that Dr. Friedman would probably start blaming him again for all the kid’s problems. Like it was some kind of child abuse to tell Owen a story?

      David knew he’d made mistakes, sure. Losing his temper and punishing Owen. And maybe he had kept the kid a little on edge with his tales about the occult, sometimes using his knowledge as leverage to put Owen in his place. How was that any different than the stories parents told about the Bogeyman? But Dr. Friedman explained how that, too, had messed with Owen’s psyche. Funny thing, how it was always the parents’ fault.

      That’s when David realized Dr. Friedman was just like everyone else, completely full of shit. Back then, they hadn’t made the connection between Owen’s eyes and any psychological condition. Still, David had his own theories about his son’s twisted behavior and how to handle it.

      Up until this morning, he’d thought he’d done just that. Neutralized the threat. David clenched his jaw. How could Rocket have let him down?

      “Don’t you want the drink?” Meredith asked.

      For a moment, he’d actually forgotten she was there. He took a long, hard look at her, the mother of his child.

      He tried to remember who she’d been all those years ago. A feisty and elegant woman educated at Smith College back East, she was the consummate diva, the only child of Judge Martin Wescott, a man who held more than a little influence in this