by Chris Carter
‘Because it’s delicious . . . and I’m hungry.’
The babysitter frowned. ‘It’s not any different from all the other times I prepared you chili con carne.’
‘Well, it tastes delicious to me,’ the girl replied, having another spoonful. ‘It’s delicious every time.’
‘Delicious, huh?’ the babysitter said. ‘Thank you, Chiquita. Still, delicious or not, don’t eat so fast. It’s going to give you a stomach ache. You’re supposed to chew your food before swallowing it. And drink your juice.’
‘I am,’ the girl replied, having the last of her dinner before reaching for her glass of juice, which she drank down in three large gulps. ‘There . . . see?’
‘What’s gotten into you today, Chiquita? Do you want to feel sick?’
‘No. And nothing has gotten into me. Everything is perfectly fine.’ The girl got up from the dinner table and placed her bowl and her glass in the dishwasher.
The babysitter could easily tell that there was something different about the girl, but whatever it was, it seemed to be something good. Since that morning, the girl had this happier air about her.
‘I think I will go finish my homework and then go to bed,’ the girl said.
‘Don’t you want your dessert?’ the babysitter asked. ‘We still got cheesecake.’
‘Umm. Maybe not tonight.’
‘OK,’ the babysitter said, making a face. ‘What’s wrong, Chiquita? There’s got to be something wrong. You never skip dessert.’
‘There’s nothing wrong,’ the girl replied, shaking her head. I just need to watch what I eat. I don’t want to be a big fat balloon.’
‘What?’ the babysitter said, almost in shock. The girl was a million miles away from being overweight. ‘Did someone at school make a comment on your weight?’
‘No.’
‘You can tell me, Chiquita. Did someone tell you that you needed to watch your weight?’
‘No. Why? Do you think I need to watch my weight?’
‘Of course not, Chiquita. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your weight, but I want to know where this silly idea to skip dessert came from.’
‘Well,’ the girl replied with a shrug. ‘I saw this program on TV about eating sweets every day and how people got fat from it. I don’t want to be like that.’
‘Oh, you saw it on TV, did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Chiquita, you don’t have to worry about that. They were talking about people who eat junk food all the time – candy bars, chips, cookies, pizza, or whatever. You don’t do that, do you?’
‘No.’
‘No, you don’t. You eat healthy and you have a dessert with your meal every day, which is good for you.’
The girl just looked back at her babysitter.
‘Here,’ the babysitter said, as she opened the fridge door. ‘You’re having your dessert. There’s nothing wrong with having a dessert after a meal.’
The girl didn’t want to argue. ‘OK, but just a small slice then.’
‘A small slice it is. And don’t eat it too fast.’
The girl took no notice of the babysitter’s last few words, devouring the whole thing in three bites.
‘OK, now I’m going to go finish my homework and go to bed.’
The babysitter wanted to ask the girl if she wasn’t going to watch some TV with her, like they did most nights, but after the comment the girl had made about the program she had watched, the babysitter thought that less TV wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
‘OK, Chiquita. Let me know if you need any help with your homework.’
‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine.’
The girl practically skipped out of the kitchen and went upstairs.
There certainly was a reason why the girl felt so happy – it was Wednesday evening, which meant that she would see him again the day after tomorrow. The past Friday, at the park behind the disused school, he had held her hand again, but this time, as they said goodbye, he kissed her on the cheek. The girl had never been so happy. He had also commented on her perfume, the one she had borrowed from her mother’s room. He said that it was very nice. The girl hadn’t managed to find her mother’s sparkly earrings, but it didn’t matter because he kissed her anyway. Now, the girl just couldn’t wait for Friday to come.
‘Just tonight and one more sleep,’ she told herself.
She finished her homework, turned off her bedroom light and tucked herself into bed, but she was too excited and her brain couldn’t stop imagining scenarios of what would happen as she and the boy met on Friday – holding hands, hopefully another kiss – who knew? When the girl finally fell asleep, she still had a smile on her face.
Her eyes blinked open again when she heard the door to her bedroom being pulled open.
Oh no, she thought. Did I miss my alarm? I never miss my alarm.
But that thought disappeared almost instantly, as her eyes moved to the alarm clock on her bedside table – 00:17 a.m.
‘Lucia?’ the girl called out her babysitter’s name in a sleepy voice.
There was no reply, but the girl heard footsteps entering her room.
‘Lucia?’ she called again, as she reached for her bedside lamp.
As the light came on, the girl’s eyes went wide with shock and her muscles stiff with fear. Towering over her bed was a tall and strong-looking man, whom she had never seen before. The look in his eyes was cold, the expression on his face uncaring, but what petrified the girl was the fact that the man’s gloved hands and some of his clothes were covered in blood.
‘Hello . . . Chiquita.’
Eighty-Seven
It was the last of Hunter and Garcia’s two days off and for the first time in years, Hunter did stay away from his desk, spending most of his time in Tracy’s company. He had spent last night at her apartment and though she had asked him if he wanted to stay the night again, Hunter had politely declined, saying that he wanted to run a few searches against a couple of FBI databases.
He had lied, which Hunter hated doing, but he wanted to take it slow with Tracy. He liked her . . . a lot, actually, but he had way too many demons running around inside his head to be able to simply step into a relationship in the same way a regular person would. Back in his apartment, Hunter read for a few hours before finally going to bed.
To put it in simple terms, there are essentially two types of insomnia. The first and most common one of the two keeps the subject from falling asleep. Regardless of how tired they might feel, or how dark and silent they might be able to make their surroundings, as soon as they finally lie down and close their eyes, their brains will shift into a new gear they didn’t even know existed. The body will feel exhausted, but the brain will be wide awake. No position will ever be comfortable enough and sleep eventually becomes as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The second type is even more debilitating because it will allow the subject to fall asleep easily at first. It will permit them to go into a deep sleep, which we all experience during the first third of our sleeping time, before torturously waking them up as if an angry fire alarm had gone off inside their heads. Once they are awake, most people who suffer from this type of insomnia will not be able to fall asleep again for the rest of the night.
Unfortunately for Hunter, he suffered from both types.
He’d been asleep for just under two hours when his brain decided to hit the fire-alarm switch.
‘Oh, give me a goddamn break,’ he mumbled as he opened his eyes and woozily stared at the ceiling. He could picture his brain laughing at him.
So you thought you would get some real sleep this time, did you? Oh, Robert, you are so easy to fool.
Hunter turned to one side and closed his eyes again, willing sleep to come back, but that just caused his brain to laugh harder.
What are you doing? Are you challenging me? We both know who’ll win this battle, don’t we? Sleep time is over for you, my dear friend.
Defeated, Hunt
er sat at the edge of his bed and switched on the bedside lamp.
Cursing his brain, Hunter staggered into the bathroom and washed his face. As he reached for the bathrobe hanging from the hook by the shower enclosure, he heard his cellphone ring on his bedside table. He rushed to it.
‘Detective Hunter,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘UVC Unit.’
‘Robert, it’s Erica. We’ve got a lead.’ There was an excited quiver to Agent Fisher’s voice.
‘What?’
‘Cyber Crime has managed to track the external connections that were made into the Optum platform.’
‘All of them?’
‘That’s right. It took them almost three days to track the entire path because the connection was bounced through five different locations. A pretty clever move, according to Cyber Crime, but not clever enough. The connections all originated from the exact same location, and guess what? The location is in California. Less than a hundred miles outside Los Angeles.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Riverside County,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘The property is an old horse ranch just south of Skull Canyon, about an hour’s drive away.’
‘Who’s the owner?’
‘The ranch used to belong to a Mr. Thomas Brewer, who died nine years ago. His wife had passed away five years before him and their only son was killed in action in Iraq in 2005. There’s no record of a new owner. It seems like the place has been abandoned since Mr. Brewer’s death. We’re on our way there right now. You coming?’
Hunter felt a whoosh of warmth start at his temples and slowly spread through his whole body.
‘What’s the address?’
‘I’m sending a map with all the coordinates to your phone right now.’
Eighty-Eight
Once Hunter joined Corona Freeway heading south, it took him exactly fifty-two minutes to reach exit eighty-five, leading to Indian Truck Trail. From there it was another four minutes until he reached Temescal Canyon Road. Two minutes later Hunter got to the dirt road Agent Fisher had indicated on the map she had sent him. The road was narrow and bumpy, surrounded by hills, bushes and rough terrain. The sky, dense with menacing clouds, cast a particularly dark night where not a single star could be seen.
Hunter drove for another eight minutes until he saw Garcia standing in the middle of the road, signaling him with a flashlight. He instructed Hunter to switch off his headlights and pull up by some heavy bushes on the right, where Garcia’s Honda Civic, a Chevrolet Malibu and an Audi A6 were already parked.
‘When did you get here?’ Hunter asked, as he stepped out of his Buick and zipped up his jacket.
‘About three minutes before you,’ Garcia replied. ‘I got the call around two in the morning.’
‘Yes, so did I. So what have we got?’
‘Just around those trees.’ Garcia indicated a cluster of low trees a few yards in front of them. ‘In a night this dark, headlights can be seen from miles away. This is as close as we can get in a car without announcing we’re coming.’
They rounded the trees and climbed up a short but steep hill covered by shrubs. Agents Fisher and Williams were crouched down behind a couple of leafy bushes.
‘That’s the ranch,’ Agent Fisher said, indicating through the bushes while handing Hunter a pair of binoculars. He repositioned himself and had a look.
The property was about two hundred and forty yards in front of them. There were only two buildings – a two-story wooden house with squared windows on the right and a long and wide stable on the left. Both structures looked old, uncared for and in serious need of some heavy repairs. The place also looked deserted.
‘Cyber Crime traced the Optum platform breaches to this location?’ Hunter asked, handing the binoculars back to Agent Fisher.
‘That’s right. All three of them, but it doesn’t look like anyone actually lives here. Did you notice the state of the place? Most of it is falling apart. If Cyber Crime got this right, then my guess is that the killer probably searched around for a place like this – abandoned, unclaimed and far from prying eyes. You drove up the dirt track, right?’ She looked around just to emphasize her point. ‘There’s nothing around here but hills and rough terrain. No neighbors. No roads. No animals. Nothing. In theory, this place is a safe house. The killer could do whatever he liked in there without ever worrying that he might get caught or disturbed.’
With the number of abandoned and shut-down properties increasing every year all over the land, Hunter didn’t find it at all surprising that this killer had perhaps settled on a disused location to run his operation from. Over the years, he and Garcia had chased a number of perpetrators who had done just that – used abandoned buildings as their ‘headquarters’, or to dump bodies, or to rape and torture their victims before murdering them . . . the applications varied, but the examples were plenty.
‘Do we know if there’s anyone in there right now?’ Hunter asked. ‘It looks empty.’
‘There’s someone in there, all right,’ Agent Williams countered. ‘I got here about twenty minutes before you guys. See the top window on the right?’ He indicated the house. ‘About fifteen minutes ago, a light came on briefly before being switched off again. We haven’t seen anyone leave.’
‘Can I have those binoculars again?’ Hunter asked.
He spent another minute studying the property and its grounds. No dogs, and he couldn’t see a vehicle anywhere, but then again, a car could easily be parked at the back of the house, or inside the stable.
Hunter turned around and looked down the hill they had climbed. ‘So are we waiting for the strike team?’
‘They’re on their way,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘But we’re not waiting.’ She quickly decided to explain before the next obvious question came her way. ‘This killer acts alone, we all know this. If he’s in there, and it looks like he is, then the odds are totally in our favor. Four armed and highly trained law-enforcement officers against one probably unarmed civilian.’
‘Probably,’ Garcia said, as he zipped up his jacket and readjusted its collar. The wind had started to pick up, bringing with it a strong smell of damp soil. Rain was clearly imminent.
‘He has no reason to be,’ Agent Fisher retorted. ‘He’s not waiting on a strike. Like I’ve said, this is probably his safe house. The only place where he feels secure enough to let down his guard. Add to that the fact that he’s completely oblivious to the fact that we’ve made this location. He might be in there walking around naked while covering himself in ice-cream. I’ve checked with Cyber Crime – they’ve covered their tracks. They guaranteed me that there’s no electronic, cyber way the killer could’ve been alerted that his connections to Optum have been traced.’
‘And you really think that instead of waiting for the strike team, the four of us storming the property right now is a good idea?’ Garcia asked.
‘Yes, I do.’ Agent Fisher’s voice was firm. ‘Whoever accessed the medical records of Kristine Rivers, Albert Greene and Timothy Davis did it from that house, twelve days prior to their murders. We know that there’s someone in there right now. Maybe that’s what he’s doing again, searching for a new victim, scanning the Optum platform. If he finds what he’s looking for, he might not come back here for days, weeks, months even. Remember, we don’t have a name or a face. All we have is this location, which on paper belongs to no one. What that means is that if he’s in there and we miss him now, we have no other way of tracking him down until he comes back here again, by which time it will probably be too late for whoever he might be selecting right now.’ She paused and looked back down the hill. ‘If you’d rather wait for the FBI strike team to get here, be my guest, but I’m going in.’
Neither Hunter nor Garcia could argue with Agent Fisher’s reasoning.
‘Fine,’ Garcia accepted. ‘We’re in. So how are we—’
‘Light,’ Agent Williams announced, this time indicating the stables. A faint light was seeping through some old wood boards on the far l
eft.
They all went silent and still.
Agent Fisher used the binoculars to have a look.
‘Can you see anything?’ Garcia asked.
‘No, nothing.’
The light stayed on for less than a minute before being switched off again.
Hunter borrowed the binoculars one more time, spending another full minute regarding the ranch.
‘I haven’t seen any movement,’ he said. ‘So he’s either still in the stables, or I’ve missed him as he walked back into the house.’
‘So how do you guys want to do this?’ Garcia asked.
‘I think our best option is if we split up into two teams of two,’ Agent Williams replied. ‘One enters the stables, the other the house.’
‘Do we have any sort of communication device?’ Garcia asked. ‘So the two teams can stay in touch?’
‘I’ve got two headsets in my trunk,’ Agent Williams announced.
‘That will help,’ Hunter said.
Agent Williams quickly ran back to his car and picked up the headsets, handing one to Hunter and one to Agent Fisher.
‘Larry and I can take the stables,’ Agent Fisher said, checking her Glock Model 22 and making sure she had an extra fifteen-round clip with her. ‘You two the house. What do you say? We’ll use the headsets to keep in touch.’
‘No problem,’ Garcia replied. ‘But if I’m going into possible close combat with deaf ears, I’m taking the Twins with me. Hold on.’
‘What?’ Agent Fisher made a face, but Garcia had already rushed back down the hill. A minute later he was back, carrying with him a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun.
‘Meet the Twins,’ he said, indicating his weapon. ‘The bad boys of close combat.’
‘You give your weapons names?’ Agent Fisher asked.
‘Boys with toys,’ Garcia replied. ‘What can I say?’
She shook her head. ‘If possible we would like to take him alive.’
‘Haven’t killed anyone in my career yet.’
They checked their weapons and tested their headsets. All was in order.
‘We’d better get going before the rain gets here,’ Hunter said. ‘If our shoes get wet, once we enter that house, each step will sound like a duck being strangled.’