by Chris Carter
‘Detective Hunter,’ he said, bringing the phone to his ear.
‘Hello, Detective. How did you like my birth city?’
Hunter’s surprised stare shot in Garcia’s direction. ‘Andrew . . . ?’
One Hundred and Five
Garcia’s eyes widened in surprise. He thought he’d heard wrong, but the expression on Hunter’s face left little doubt.
‘Andrew Harper . . . ?’ Hunter repeated, keeping his voice steady.
A chuckle came down the phone. ‘No one has called me Andrew in twenty years.’ The sentence was delivered in a calm tone. His voice like a muffled whisper. Hunter remembered the whispering voice he’d heard on the recording Myers had retrieved from Katia Kudrov’s answering machine.
‘Do you miss being called by your real name?’ Hunter’s tone matched Andrew’s.
Silence.
‘I know you were there, Andrew. I know you saw what happened that day in your house. But why did you run? Where did you go? Why didn’t you allow people to help you?’
‘Help me?’ He laughed.
‘No one could’ve coped with what you went through alone. You needed help then. You need help now.’
‘Cope? How could anyone cope with watching his father transform into a monster right in front of his eyes? A father who only hours earlier had given me the best presents I’d ever got. A father who’d promised me that everything would be fine. That there’d be no more fights. A father who said that he loved my mother and me more than anything. What kind of love is that?’
Hunter didn’t have an answer.
‘I’ve researched you. You used to be a psychologist, didn’t you? Do you think you could’ve helped me cope?’
‘I would’ve done my best.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘No, it isn’t. Life isn’t meant for us to go through it on our own. We all need help from time to time. No matter how strong or tough we think we are. A person alone just can’t deal with certain life situations. Especially not when you’re only ten years old.’
Silence.
‘Andrew?’
‘Stop calling me Andrew. You don’t have the right to do that. No one does. Andrew died that night, twenty years ago.’
‘OK. What name would you like me to call you?’
‘You don’t need to call me anything. But since you were so kind to fuck everything up. To go digging into something you had no right to, I have a surprise for you too. I take it that your phone has video-streaming capabilities, right?’
Hunter frowned.
‘I’m sending you a short video I made earlier. I hope you enjoy it.’
The line went dead.
‘What happened?’ Garcia asked.
Hunter shook his head. ‘He’s sending me some sort of video.’
‘A video? Of what?’
Hunter’s phone beeped – Incoming video request.
‘I guess we’re just about to find out.’
One Hundred and Six
Hunter immediately pressed the yes button accepting the request. Garcia moved closer and craned his neck. Their eyes were glued to the small progress bar on Hunter’s cell phone screen as it filled itself up very slowly. Time seemed to drag.
The phone finally beeped again – Download complete. Watch it now?
Hunter pressed yes again.
The picture was grainy, the quality substandard. It had obviously been recorded using a cheap cell phone camera, but there was no doubt who they were looking at.
‘What the fuck?’ Garcia moved even closer.
Tied to a metal chair in the center of an empty room was a woman. Her head was slumped forward, her dark hair falling over her face covering her features. But neither Hunter nor Garcia needed to see her face to know who she was.
‘Am I going crazy?’ Garcia asked, wide-eyed, the color draining from his face.
No words left Hunter’s lips.
‘How the fuck did he get Captain Blake?’ Garcia’s eyes were still cemented to the screen.
Still silence from Hunter.
The video played on.
Captain Blake slowly lifted her head and Hunter felt something close tight around his heart. She was bleeding from the nose and mouth and her left eye had almost swollen shut. She didn’t look drugged, just in severe pain. The picture focused on her face for just a few more seconds before fading to black.
‘This is crazy,’ Garcia said, fidgeting like a kid.
Hunter’s phone rang again. He answered it immediately.
‘If you’re wondering,’ the whispering voice said, ‘she’s still alive. So I’d be very careful of your next move. ’Cause how long she stays that way depends on it. Back off.’
The line disconnected.
‘What did he say?’
Hunter told him.
‘Shit. This is so messed up. Why take the captain? And why send us a video? That’s completely contrary to his MO. He hasn’t done that with any of the previous victims.’
‘Because Captain Blake isn’t like any of the previous victims, Carlos. She doesn’t remind him of his mother. He didn’t take her for that reason. She’s security . . . a bargaining tool.’
‘What?’
‘On the phone he said, “Be very careful of your next move. ’Cause how long she stays alive depends on it. Back off.” He’s using her as a guarantee.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause we’re getting close, and he wasn’t expecting it. We know who he is . . . or used to be. He knows it’s just a matter of hours before we catch up with him.’
Garcia bit his bottom lip. ‘He’s panicking.’
‘Yes. That’s why the video. And when they panic and deviate from their original plan, they make mistakes.’
‘We don’t have time to wait for him to make a mistake, Robert. He’s got the captain.’
‘He’s already made the mistake.’
‘What? What mistake?’
Hunter pointed to his phone. ‘He sent us a video. We need Internet access.’
‘Internet?’ Garcia frowned. ‘Can we trace it?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s not that stupid.’
‘So why do we need the Internet?’
Hunter looked around and saw a thirty-something man sitting at a table in the corner. He was typing into his laptop.
‘Excuse me, are you online?’
The man looked up, his gaze quickly jumping from Hunter to Garcia, who was right behind his partner. The man nodded skeptically. ‘Yeah.’
‘We need to borrow your computer very quickly,’ Hunter said, having a seat and pulling the laptop towards him.
The man was about to say something when Garcia placed a hand on his shoulder, showing him his badge.
‘Los Angeles Homicide Division, this is important.’
The man lifted both hands in the air in surrender and stood up.
‘I’ll be right over there.’ He pointed to the corner. ‘Take your time.’
‘Why do you need the Internet all of a sudden?’ Garcia asked, taking a seat next to Hunter.
‘Give me a sec.’ He was busy Googling something. A web page loaded and he scanned it as fast as he could.
‘Fuck.’
Hunter grabbed his phone and watched the video again, frowning at it.
‘Damn.’
He Googled something else. A new page loaded and he scanned it again. ‘Oh shit,’ he whispered, checking his watch. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, standing up.
‘Go where?’
‘Santa Clarita.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because I know where the captain is being held.’
One Hundred and Seven
Aided by Garcia’s car’s lights and siren, they were eating ground fast. They hooked onto Interstate 405 and Garcia hit the fast lane doing eighty-five miles an hour.
‘OK, how do you know where the captain is being held?’ Garcia asked.
Hunter played the video again and showed his partner. ‘Bec
ause she told me.’
‘Huh?’
‘Pay attention to her lips.’
Garcia’s attention diverted from the road for just a second, enough for him to notice the captain’s lips moving ever so slightly.
‘I’ll be damned.’
‘The captain knew there was only one reason Andrew was shooting this video. She knew we would watch it.’
‘More to the point,’ Garcia added, ‘she knew you would watch it. So what did she say?’
‘St Michael’s Hospice.’
‘What?’
‘That’s why I needed the Internet. I thought she’d said St Michael’s Hospital. But there isn’t one, there never was. So I watched the video again and realized she’d said hospice, not hospital. St Michael’s Hospice in Santa Clarita closed down nine years ago, after a fire destroyed most of the building.’ Hunter typed the address into Garcia’s GPS navigational system. ‘There it is.’
‘Shit,’ Garcia said. ‘Out towards the hills. Completely isolated.’
Hunter nodded.
‘So if we suspect that’s where the captain is being held, why are we going there without a SWAT team?’
‘Because Andrew said that how long the captain lived depended on our actions. He’s somehow monitoring what we do.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, Carlos. But he called me just minutes after I landed. I’d been away less than a day. How the hell did he know I’d gone to Healdsburg this morning?’
Garcia had no answer.
‘SWAT teams are great, but they aren’t exactly subtle. If Andrew gets a sniff that we might know where he is, he’ll get to Captain Blake a lot faster than we or any SWAT team can get to him. And then it’s game over.’
‘So what are we gonna do?’
‘Everything we can. We might be able to surprise him. He doesn’t know that we know. The surprise factor is on our side. If we do this right, we can end this – now.’
Garcia stepped on the gas.
Hunter started flipping through the magazines and printouts Garcia had brought with him. He started reading the interview with Jessica Black again from the start when he suddenly paused and frowned. He reached for the next magazine, the one with Laura Mitchell’s interview.
Adrenalin rushed through his veins. ‘You’re shitting me,’ he whispered.
‘What?’ Garcia asked.
‘Wait up.’ He grabbed the computer printout – Kelly Jensen’s interview. ‘We’ve been fucking blind.’
‘For Chrissakes, what have you found, Robert?’
‘Did you know that these three magazines belong to the same corporation?’
‘No.’ Garcia shrugged.
‘Well, they do.’
‘OK, so . . . ?’
‘Did you check the name of the reporter who conducted the interviews?’
‘No.’ Garcia started to look worried.
‘It’s the same guy.’
‘No way.’
Hunter lifted one of the magazines and pointed to the credits, indicating the reporter’s name.
One Hundred and Eight
Hunter was already on the phone to Special Operations. He told them to send units out to the reporter’s home and work address. If he were sighted, he was to be stopped and taken in immediately. An APB was also put out on his registered car.
In Santa Clarita they drove up Sand Canyon Way in the direction of the hills and turned right into a small narrow road that ran another five hundred yards towards the entrance to the old St Michael’s Hospice.
‘We better come off-road somewhere around here and walk the rest of the way,’ Hunter said as they got within two hundred yards of the entrance. ‘I don’t wanna alert him that we’re coming.’
Garcia nodded and found a hidden place behind some tall trees to leave the car.
They quickly walked the rest of the way through the high vegetation and found a covered position about seventy-five yards from the derelict St Michael’s Hospice building.
It was a two-story rectangular structure covering around one thousand square feet. Most of the outside shell had crumbled, the majority of the roof had caved into the top floor, and there were clues everywhere that a large fire had taken place some time ago. At certain spots they could see right through the building. Debris was scattered all around the grounds.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Garcia asked. ‘There seems to be nothing here.’
Hunter pointed to the ground around what used to be the building’s main entrance – a series of fresh tire tracks.
‘Someone has been here recently.’
The tracks led away from the front of the building and disappeared around and towards the back – the only place where the walls seemed intact. Hunter and Garcia spent a few minutes observing from a distance, looking for surveillance cameras or any other signs of security or life. Nothing.
‘Let’s get closer,’ Hunter said.
The tire tracks stopped by a large staircase and wheelchair ramp that led down into the building’s underground floor. There were several footprints on the steps, going in both directions. They all seemed to belong to the same person.
‘Whatever’s happening here, it’s down there.’ Garcia nodded at the stairs.
Hunter pulled out his gun.
‘Only one way to find out. Are you ready for this?’
Garcia grabbed his weapon. ‘No, but let’s do it anyway.’
One Hundred and Nine
Surprisingly, the double swing doors at the bottom of the staircase weren’t locked. Hunter and Garcia pushed them open and stepped inside.
The first room was an old-style reception lobby. A battered semicircular counter was fixed to the wall on the left. Broken furniture was scattered around everywhere, covered in dust and old rags. Beyond the reception counter there was another set of swing doors.
‘I don’t like this one bit,’ Garcia whispered. ‘There’s something just not right about this place.’
Hunter looked around slowly. He still could see no surveillance cameras or any other type of security against intruders. He nodded at Garcia and they both carefully approached the new set of doors.
Hunter tried the handles – unlocked. They moved through.
The doors led them into a wide corridor, stretching for about thirty-five feet. One single dim light bulb kept it from plunging into total darkness. From where they were standing they could see only one door, halfway down the corridor.
‘OK, I’m not one to believe in vibes, or auras, or crap like that,’ Garcia said, ‘but there’s definitely something fucked-up about this place. I can feel it in my soul.’
They kept moving stealthily forward until they reached the lonely door on their left. Again – unlocked. They moved inside.
The room was about twenty-five feet by twenty, and was kitted out like a carpenter’s workshop. A large wooden drawing desk, a heavy-duty workstation counter, two old metal filing cabinets, wall-mounted shelves, and a paraphernalia of instruments and tools hanging from the walls and scattered around the room.
Hunter and Garcia stood still for a moment, taking everything in. When they finally approached the drawing desk, they froze.
‘Holy shit,’ Garcia whispered. His eyes settled on the building plans and the photographs on the desk. They showed one item only. An object they’d seen before. The fan-out knife that was retrieved from inside Kelly Jensen’s body.
Across the room, Hunter recognized the items inside a small box on top of the workstation – the self-activating clicking mechanism. There were three of them, ready to be used. Next to them he found another box with two aluminum tubes. Hunter and Garcia didn’t need to look at them closely to know exactly what they were – practice runs for the flare that was inserted into Jessica Black’s body. This was his creative chamber of horrors, Hunter thought. His death factory.
‘Look at this,’ Garcia said, checking some of the other drawings on the desk. ‘Plans for the bomb used on Laura Mitchell.’
Garcia allowed his eyes to roam the room one more time. ‘He can build almost any sort of torture and death instrument in here.’
Hunter’s eyes were also rechecking the room – ceiling, corners, strategic places . . . Still he could see no surveillance of any kind.
‘Here we are!’ Garcia said, reaching for a sheet of paper he found stuck to the wall.
‘What have you got?’
‘Looks like the underground floor plan for this place.’
Hunter moved closer and studied the drawing. The corridor they were in led into a new, transversal hallway. That hallway went around in a large squared path. Four corridors, and according to the plans they were looking at, each corridor held two rooms. There was no other exit on the other side. The only way out was to come back to where they were and go up the stairs they’d come down from.
Garcia felt his blood run cold. ‘Eight rooms. He can keep up to eight victims here at once?’
Hunter nodded. ‘It seems that way.’
‘Fuck. This guy is sick.’
Hunter paused and turned around. He had noticed something hanging from the wall before, but he didn’t pick up on it. A large metal key ring with several skeleton keys.
‘I bet these open the rooms.’
Garcia nodded. ‘Let’s go give them a try.’
They stepped out of the drawing room and, as quickly and quietly as they could, moved onto the transversal hallway at the end of the corridor they were in. They came out exactly at the center of the hallway. In total, this corridor stretched for sixty or seventy feet. Just like the previous one, a single dim light bulb behind a metal mesh on the wall kept it from total darkness.
‘So, what would you like to do?’ Garcia asked. ‘Split up or go together?’
‘Let’s give ourselves a better chance and move together. That way we can cover each other.’
Garcia nodded. ‘Good call. Which way?’
Hunter pointed right.
Once again they moved in almost complete silence. They quickly got to the first room towards the end of the corridor. A very sturdy and thick timber door. At the bottom of it there was a food hatch. Hunter fumbled through the keys in the large key ring, trying each one. He found the correct key on his third attempt.