much better then.'
Greg interrupted her. 'Maybe you should wait,' he said. 'After you're better -'
'No. I want to tell you now. It might be important. You want to sit down?'
'Okay.' He parked himself in the visitor's chair. He was torn, because she was right, her story might be important. On the other hand, in her condition she might not know what was important, and she could do further damage to herself if she didn't take it easy.
But she seemed to have held it in for so long that it flowed out of her, like water from a broken spigot that, once turned on, couldn't be easily shut off again.
'When I felt strong enough,' she continued. 'I visited some of our old family haunts. Places we went in happier days, with Dad and Troy. Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam, the Natural History Museum. We used to have picnics in this park, way at the edge of town, with swing-sets and slides. It was a simple thing, but those are some of my favorite childhood memories. But the park isn't there anymore. Instead there's this homeless city, all these tents and shacks. It's so tragic.'
'I know,' Greg said. 'I've been there.'
'Anyway, I went back there again and again, just drawn there because even though the park was gone, there were enough other familiar things that I still felt comfortable there. There was this ice cream parlor, where Daddy used to buy us cones after playing in the park. Even though most of the area has changed, that's still there, and I would sit at a table outside and eat some ice cream and watch people pass by. Just living in the past, I guess. Maybe people do that when they don't have a future anymore.'
'You have a future, Daria.'
'Maybe so, but I didn't know that at the time. I just knew my mom and I had come down with what seemed like some terrible disease. Even though she's so much older than me – she was in her forties even before Troy and I were born – it seemed like I had it worse. I was so weak, so sick all the time.
'Anyway, next to the ice cream parlor was this music store where Troy and I used to buy cassettes. They sell CDs now, mostly used ones, but when I browsed through the racks I felt like I was right back in those days. The time before we lost Daddy and Troy, when we were a real family.
'So I was sitting there one day, at a table outside the ice cream place, with a double Dutch chocolate sundae. And I saw this homeless guy. He looked like all the rest of them, you know, all dark from sun and dirt, his clothes all turned a shade of almost charcoal gray. But there was something about him, in his eyes maybe. Something familiar.'
'And it was Troy,' Greg offered.
Her response was so enthusiastic he was afraid she would hurt herself. 'Yes! It was Troy. As soon as I realized how familiar he was, I knew it was him. No question, no doubt. Even through all the years and all that's happened to him, I was absolutely convinced.
'He was afraid of me, at first, afraid that I wanted something from him, or would steal what little he had. He didn't know why I could possibly want to talk to him. I had to go back over and over again, persuading him, pleading with him to listen to me. I knew who he was, and I was sure he recognized me, but he didn't trust his own mind. He was defensive, and he had suffered some kind of brain damage, and it took some time to get him to listen to me. He was Troy, but his personality was so different, he had been through something terrible and he couldn't tell me what it was. Or he wouldn't.
'But when he finally listened to me, when he let me show him pictures of the family, or himself, when I told him about things he might remember, and took him to familiar places, he gradually came to believe me. He accepted that he was Troy Cameron, and not -'
'Not Crackers?'
She cracked the first real smile Greg had seen. 'That's right, that's what they called him in that place. Crackers. That was the only name he knew. Troy always liked crackers, even when he was a baby. We used to get him saltines, in restaurants, to munch on while we waited for our meals.
'But even though I got him to accept his true identity, he still didn't trust anything else about his old life. I told him who his mother was, and when he found out she had a lot of money, he wouldn't go near her. He was too damaged, too messed up, he said, and if she ever found out about him she would just think he was after her money. I told him that was nonsense, but I couldn't convince him. He wanted to remain a secret. I had to respect that, or risk him withdrawing again, maybe running away. I didn't tell anyone about him, not Mom or anybody else, because I wanted to keep seeing him. I knew that the more I saw him, the more he would trust me, and eventually maybe he would let me convince him to see Mom.
'He didn't remember much of what had happened to him, or to Daddy,' she went on. A passing nurse stuck his head in the door. Greg shot him a glance that asked. Should she be talking? But the man just shrugged, so Greg let Daria Cameron go on. 'But he had these directions he had written out, over and over. He didn't know where they led, just that they were something he'd always had, always rewriting in case some of his older copies got lost. He said it was something very important, he just didn't know what.'
'But you had an idea?'
'I had an idea. I figured if it was something that important to him, it might have to do with whatever had happened. How he had gotten this way, what happened to Daddy. I tried to jog his memory, but it wouldn't come back. And he refused to follow the directions with me. He said it was too scary and too sad.
'Anyway, when I started to feel really sick, like I wasn't going to make it, I went back to him. I told him he had to go see Mom – that when I died, he would be all she had, and vice versa. I gave him directions, told him how to get through the gate, and told him what to say when he got there. Then I took a copy of his directions, and went out into the desert. I wanted to find Daddy. I didn't want to die without knowing the truth. I wanted to find out, and then to die with him.'
'That took a lot of courage.'
She smiled again. Each time she did, her face lit up and Greg could see the woman behind the ravages of poison and exposure. 'Courage or stupidity. I started to think it was that. But I kept going, and when I saw the X that Troy had marked on the wall, I knew I was in the right place. Daddy was dead, of course, but I was sure it was him even though I couldn't recognize anything about him. There was no one else it could be.'
'I think you're right,' Greg said. 'That's what I thought when I saw him, too.'
'That's right, you were in there! In that little cave.' A frightened look washed across her face. 'Did… did Troy ever get there? To Mom?'
This was the moment Greg had been hoping to avoid. Someone had to tell her, and it looked as if he was elected. He could stall her, maybe for another half hour, an hour at the most. Let her recover more. But for all he knew, her family was waiting outside for him to be finished here. Would it be cruel to leave it for them to tell her?
Family would be the lucky thing. What if some reporter got in here and asked her about it? He didn't know if the media had found out yet, but if they had… he didn't want that to happen. Anyway, she had been strong enough to tell her story, so he thought she was strong enough to listen to his. 'I'm very sorry, Daria,' he said, his voice low and gentle. 'There's something I need to tell you…'
24
Sam Vega drove onto the Cameron estate just as Catherine was finishing with yet another phone call. She greeted him, and the two of them started toward the house. Dustin Gottlieb opened the door before they reached it. 'Does Mr. Coatsworth know you're coming?' he asked, allowing them into the foyer. 'He's not here at the moment.'
'We just need to see Mrs. Cameron briefly,' Sam said.
'Well…'
'It's official business, Mr. Gottlieb.' Sam gave Gottlieb a look that conveyed both gravity and weariness in equal proportion, the kind of look that young cops had to practice in the mirror because it would serve them so well over the years.
'Fine, I'll fetch her. Wait here.'
