In Dark Places

She turned and ran. There was no place to hide in the empty room, no time to get to the hallway where other rooms might provide concealment. There was only the open door to the cellar. She threw herself onto the landing.

Behind her, the gun boomed.

Was she hit? She didn't think so.

On hands and knees she crossed the landing. The flashlight, still resting there, spun and rolled against the door, shining into the main room, lighting up Gray as he bounded over the conveyor belt and sprinted toward her.

She picked up the flashlight and pitched it at him, a feeble gesture. He laughed again. She reached the stairs and tumbled down, colliding with something soft and fleshy, which was Detective Tomlinson, dead, his face shot away, and in his hand was his gun.

She pried it out of his fingers, and Gray burst through the door, and she raised the gun in both hands and fired.

Her finger worked the trigger again and again, muzzle flashes flickering in the cellar. She had never fired a gun in her life, had never even handled one, and she had no idea if she was hitting anything or not.

She pulled the trigger until the gun was empty, and then over the furious clamor in her ears she heard voices.

"LAPD, drop your weapon!"

The police were here. Better late than never.

She set down the empty gun. Slowly she pushed herself upright and climbed the stairs.

The wavering beams of several flashlights had found Gray on the landing. He lay curled in a fetal pose, groaning softly. Blood crisscrossed his body in a red skein.

As she reached the landing, the flashlights discovered her.

"It's me," she said weakly. "Robin Cameron."

Her own name sounded unreal, as if it belonged to some other person, or to a person she used to be.

The police didn't respond for a moment, giving her time to think that these officers might be part of the conspiracy too. If they were, then all her efforts had been wasted, and she and Meg were dead.

Then one of the menDeputy Chief Hammond, she realizedcame forward. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

The statement struck her as absurd under the circumstances, yet somehow it was true.

"Call an RA," Hammond snapped to the man next to him, the one named Lewinsky, who'd been hostile to Wolper. "Call twoone for Dr. Cameron, one for him." His curt gesture indicated Gray. "What happened here, Doctor?"

She ignored the question. "I need to find Meg," Robin said.

"Is she here?"

"I sent her"she waved toward the offices and hallways"sent her to hide."

"Ba

"I'm on it, Chief." The man named Ba

Robin stepped past Gray and the two officers kneeling beside him on the landing. They seemed to be checking his vitals. As a doctor, she was in the best position to offer medical assistance, but she had no strength for it and, at the moment, no concern whether Justin Gray lived or died.

"What happened?" Hammond asked again.

"How did you find me?"

"Traced your phone call."

So hitting redial had worked. She stooped and retrieved her purse from the floor, then ended the call, breaking the co

"Doctor?" That was Hammond again.

"I shot him," she said, finally answering his question. "I shot Justin Gray."

"I can see that. Where's the gun you used?"

"In the cellar. Along with a dead man, Detective Tomlinson."

Hammond was bewildered. "You shot him too?"

"Gray did."

"What was Tomlinson doing here?"

"He came to kill Meg."

"This isn't making sense, Doctor."

"It will. I can't explain it all now. Wolper was part of it"

"Wolper?"

"And Tomlinson and probably others."

"What possible co

"No co

Hammond shook his head. "I don't understand."

"It will all make sense. Later."

He seemed to accept this. She knew she should say more, but she was tired, very tired amp;

Her cell phone rang. She wondered who it could be, and if she should even answer. Out of habit she fished the phone out of her purse and took the call. "Yes?"

"Dr. Cameron? This is Gaines." The criminalist. She'd forgotten about him. "Farber got through to the ITA administrator. We traced those e-mails to a specific terminal. Gabe is a police officer, I'm afraid."

Tomlinson, she thought. Or Brand.

"He works in the office of Deputy Chief Hammond. A lieutenant, name of Ba

Robin stared at the phone, and then it had fallen from her hand, and she was ru

Hammond and the other cops sprinted behind her, yelling questions she ignored.

This part of the factory had housed the administrative offices. She passed rows of doorless entry ways. No skylight in here, but each office had a narrow window that let in ambient light from outside. Maybe Meg had found a way out through one of those windows. Maybe Ba

But she knew this was an idle hope. The windows were too small to allow escape. Even if she had gotten out, Ba

He had to kill Meg. She could identify him as her kidnapper. He didn't know about the e-mail trace, didn't know he'd already been caught.

To save himself, he would kill Meg and make it look as if Gray had found her before tangling with Robin. Robin's testimony would contradict this version of events, but no one would listen to her. They would say that her memory had been altered by stress and trauma.

She could never prove otherwise. Memory, as she knew too well, was a tricky thing.

The trail curved into an intersecting corridor, ending at an office straight ahead. Robin ran to it, not caring that she was unarmed and unprotected.

In the office she found Meg huddled in a corner, staring. And Ba

A syringe.

"Little whore," Ba

Robin slipped past him and knelt by her daughter. "Better watch yourself, Lieutenant. I shot the last man who called her that."

She hugged Meg and stroked her hair, while Hammond called for another ambulance.

Chapter Sixty

"Granola bars. Yum."

Robin studied her daughter for signs of sarcasm but found none. Meg seemed honestly contented as she sat at the kitchen table before a plate occupied by two unwrapped honey-oat granola bars.

"I seem to recall your showing a certain aversion to all things granola," Robin observed suspiciously.

Meg shrugged. "I've grown to love them."

"Since when?"

"It's an acquired taste."

Robin sat down opposite her. "So you ready for your triumphal return?"

"Definitely."

"There will be questions. And stares."

"I know."

Robin nodded. Although Meg's name had been kept out of the media, her friends knew what had happened, and friends always talked. In the six weeks Meg had been out of schoolfirst recuperating in the hospital, then visiting her father in Santa Barbara, then traveling with Robin on an extended getaway to northern California the word would have spread throughout the small social circle of the Gainesburg School.

For much of that time the school, which was on a year-round schedule, had been out of sessionsummer recess, they called it, though it lasted only a month. Still, nearly all the kids lived on the Westside, and they would have stayed in touch.