Authors: Chris Carter
Nicole’s stare relaxed a fraction.
‘I flew in this morning for a big job interview downtown this afternoon,’ Mark explained.
He was dressed in what looked to be a brand new suit, very elegant. He also looked quite attractive.
‘I just got back from it about ten minutes ago,’ he continued. ‘And suddenly my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t had any food all day.’ He tilted his head to one
side. ‘I can’t really eat when I get nervous. So I just came in for a quick sandwich and a glass of milk.’ His eyes moved to where he was sitting and he chuckled. ‘Which is
now all over the table and starting to drip on to the floor.’
He picked up his chair and looked around for something to clean up the mess. He found a roll of paper towels next to a large fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.
‘I’m a little surprised that Audrey forgot to tell you I was staying over,’ Mark said as he began mopping up the milk from the floor.
‘Well, they were in a bit of a hurry,’ Nicole conceded, her posture not as tense as moments ago. ‘Ms. Bennett asked me if I could get here for eight o’clock, but the
earliest I could make it was eight-thirty.’
‘Oh, OK. Is Josh still awake? I’d like to say goodnight if I could.’
Nicole shook her head. ‘No. He’s out like a light.’
‘He’s a great kid,’ Mark said, as he bundled up all the soaked paper towels and dumped them in the trashcan.
Nicole kept her full attention on him. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you look a little familiar. Have I met you before?
‘No,’ Mark replied. ‘This is actually my first ever visit to LA. But it’s probably from the photographs in the TV room and in James’ study. I’m in two of
them. Plus, Audrey and I have the same eyes.’
‘Oh . . . the photographs. That must be it,’ Nicole said, a hazy memory playing at the edge of her mind, but not quite materializing.
A distant cellphone ringtone broke the awkward silence that had followed.
‘Is that your phone?’ Mark asked.
Nicole nodded.
‘That’s probably Audrey calling to say that she forgot to tell you about me.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘Too late.’
Nicole smiled back. ‘Let me go get that.’ She exited the kitchen and returned to the living room, where she retrieved her cellphone from her bag. The call was indeed from Audrey
Bennett.
‘Hi Ms. Bennett, how’s the dinner party?’
‘Even more boring than I expected, Nicole. This is going to be a long night. Anyway, I’m just calling to check that everything is all right.’
‘Yes, everything is fine,’ Nicole replied.
‘Has Josh woken up at all?’
‘No, no. I just checked on him again a moment ago. He looks like he’s out for the count.’
‘Oh, that’s great.’
‘By the way, I just met Mark in the kitchen.’
There was some loud background noise coming from Audrey’s side.
‘Sorry, Nicole, what did you say?’
‘That I just met Mark, your cousin from Texas, who’s staying in the garage apartment. I walked in on him having a sandwich in the kitchen, and we scared the hell out of each
other.’ She giggled.
There was a couple of seconds’ delay before Audrey replied.
‘Nicole, where’s he? Has he gone up to Josh’s room?’
‘No, he’s still in the kitchen.’
‘OK, Nicole, listen to me.’ Audrey’s voice was serious, but shaky at the same time. ‘As quietly and as quickly as you can, go get Josh and get out of the house. I’m
calling the police right now.’
‘What?’
‘Nicole, I don’t have a cousin named Mark from Texas. We don’t have anyone staying in the garage apartment. Get out of the house . . .
now
. Do you
underst—’
CLUNK.
‘Nicole?’
‘NICOLE?’
The line went dead.
Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division pushed open the door to his small office on the fifth floor of the famous Police Administration Building in
Downtown Los Angeles and stepped inside. The clock on the wall showed 2:43 p.m.
Hunter looked around the room slowly. It’d been exactly two weeks since he last entered his office, and he had been hoping to come back to it relaxed and with a golden tan, but instead he
felt totally exhausted and he was sure that he’d never looked as pale as he did now.
Hunter was supposed to have gone on his first vacation in nearly seven years. His captain had demanded that he and his partner take a two-week break after their last investigation ended sixteen
days ago. Hunter had planned to go to Hawaii, a place that he’d always wanted to visit, but on the day he was supposed to fly out, his close friend, Adrian Kennedy, who was also the director
of the FBI’s National Center for the Analyses of Violent Crime, asked Hunter for his help in interviewing an apprehended suspect in a double homicide investigation. Hunter had found himself
unable to say no, so instead of flying to Hawaii he ended up in Quantico, Virginia.
The interview was meant to take no more than just a couple of days, but Hunter had got sucked into an investigation that changed his life for ever.
He and the FBI had finally closed the case less than twenty-four hours ago. With the investigation concluded, Kennedy had tried one more time to convince the once prodigy kid to join the
Bureau.
Hunter grew up as an only child to working-class parents in Compton, an underprivileged neighborhood of South Los Angeles. His mother lost her battle with cancer when he was
only seven. His father never remarried and had to take on two jobs to cope with the demands of raising a child on his own.
From a very early age it was obvious to everyone that Hunter was different. He could figure things out faster than most. School bored and frustrated him. He’d finished all of his
sixth-grade work in less than two months and, just for something to do, he sped through seventh-, eighth- and even ninth-grade books.
It was then that his principal decided to get in contact with the Los Angeles Board of Education. After a battery of exams and tests, at the age of twelve Hunter was given a scholarship to the
Mirmam School for the Gifted.
By the age of fourteen he’d glided through Mirmam’s high school English, History, Math, Biology and Chemistry curriculums. Four years of high school were condensed into two and at
fifteen he’d graduated with honors. With recommendations from all of his teachers, Hunter was accepted as a ‘special circumstances’ student at Stanford University.
By the age of nineteen Hunter had already graduated in Psychology –
summa cum laude
– and at twenty-three he received his Ph.D. in Criminal Behavior Analysis and
Biopsychology. That was when Kennedy tried to recruit him into the FBI for the first time.
Hunter’s Ph.D. thesis paper, titled ‘An Advanced Psychological Study in Criminal Conduct’, ended up on Kennedy’s desk. The paper had impressed Kennedy and the then FBI
Director so much that it had become mandatory reading at the NCAVC. Since then and over the years, Kennedy had tried several times to recruit Hunter into his team. In Kennedy’s mind, it made
no sense that Hunter would rather be a detective with a local police force than join the most advanced serial-killer tracking task force in the USA, arguably in the world. But Hunter had never
shown even an ounce of interest in becoming a federal agent, and had declined every offer made to him by Kennedy and his superiors.
Hunter sat at his desk but didn’t turn on his computer. He found it funny how everything about his office looked exactly the same, and totally different at the same time.
Exactly the same because nothing had been moved or touched. Totally different because something was missing. Actually, not something, someone – his partner of six years, Detective Carlos
Garcia.
Their last investigation together, before the enforced two-week break, had put Hunter and Garcia in pursuit of an extremely sadistic serial killer, who chose to broadcast his murders live over
the Internet. The investigation had taken them both to the brink of sanity, almost claiming Hunter’s life, and placing Garcia and his family in a situation he swore he would never allow to
happen again.
Just before their break, Garcia had revealed to Hunter that upon his return he wasn’t sure if he would come back to work at the Robbery Homicide Division and the Homicide Special Section.
His priorities had changed. His family had to come first, no matter what.
Hunter didn’t have a family. He wasn’t married. He had no kids. But he fully understood his partner’s concern, and he was sure that whatever decision Garcia came to, it would
be the right one for him.
The Homicide Special Section of the LAPD was an elite unit created to deal solely with serial, high-profile murders and homicide cases requiring extensive investigative time and expertise. Due
to Hunter’s background in criminal behavior psychology, he headed up an even more specialized group within the Special Section. All homicides where overwhelming brutality and/or sadism had
been used by the perpetrator were tagged by the department as ‘UV Crimes (Ultra-Violent). Hunter and Garcia were the LAPD’s UV Unit, and Garcia was the best partner and friend Hunter
had ever had.
Hunter finally leaned forward and reached for the button to power up his computer, but before he’d managed to press it the door to his office was pushed open again and Garcia stepped
inside.
‘Oh!’ Garcia said, looking a little surprised as he checked the wall clock. ‘You’re earlier than usual, Robert.’
Hunter’s eyes flicked to the clock – 2:51 p.m. – then back to his partner. Garcia’s longish brown hair was tied back in a slick ponytail, still wet from a morning shower,
but his eyes looked tired and full of worry.
‘Yeah, a little bit,’ Hunter replied.
‘You don’t look so tanned for someone who’s just been to Hawaii.’ Garcia paused and frowned at Hunter. ‘You did take your vacation, right?’ Hunter was the
biggest workaholic Garcia had ever met.
‘Sort of,’ Hunter said, with a half-nod.
‘And what does that mean?’
‘I took my break,’ Hunter explained. ‘I just didn’t go to Hawaii in the end.’
‘So where did you go?’
‘Nowhere special, just visiting a friend back east.’
‘OK.’
Garcia could tell that it hadn’t been something as simple as that but he also knew Hunter well enough to know that if he didn’t want to talk about a subject, he wouldn’t, no
matter how much anyone pushed him.
Garcia approached his desk but didn’t sit down. He didn’t turn on his computer either. Instead, he opened the desk’s top drawer and began emptying it of its contents, placing
everything on the desktop.
Hunter observed his partner without uttering a word.
Garcia finally looked at him. ‘I’m sorry, buddy,’ he said as he began emptying the second drawer, breaking the awkward silence that had taken over the room.
Hunter nodded once.
‘I thought long and hard about all this, Robert,’ Garcia opened up. ‘Actually, I spent every second of the past two weeks thinking about it, considering all the possibilities,
measuring everything up, and I know that on a personal level, I’ll probably never stop regretting this. But I also know that I can never put Anna through anything like that again, Robert. She
means everything to me. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her because of the job I do.’
‘I know that,’ Hunter replied. ‘And I don’t blame you, Carlos, not even a little bit. I would’ve done the same thing.’
Hunter’s heartfelt words brought a very feeble ‘thank you’ smile to Garcia’s lips. Hunter picked up on his partner’s embarrassment.
‘You don’t owe anybody any sort of explanation, Carlos, least of all me.’
‘I owe you everything, Robert,’ Garcia interrupted him. ‘I owe you my life. I owe you Anna’s life. It’s because of you that both of us are still alive,
remember?’
Hunter didn’t want to talk about the past, so he moved the subject along as swiftly as he could.
‘How’s Anna doing, by the way?’
‘She’s surprisingly OK for someone who went through what she did,’ Garcia said, as he finished emptying the desk drawers. ‘She’s staying at her parents for a couple
of days.’
‘She’s a very strong woman,’ Hunter admitted. ‘Physically and mentally.’
‘She is indeed.’
For a moment the awkward silence came back to the room.
‘So where are you going?’ Hunter asked.
Garcia paused and glanced at Hunter. This time he looked a little embarrassed.
‘San Francisco.’
Hunter was unable to hide his surprise.
‘You’re leaving LA?’
‘We decided it would be best if we did, yes.’
Hunter had not seen that coming. In silence, he nodded his understanding. ‘SFPD’s Robbery Homicide Division will be lucky to get you.’
Garcia looked even more embarrassed now. ‘I’m not staying with the Robbery Homicide Division.’
Hunter’s surprise turned into confusion. He knew how long and hard Garcia had fought to make Homicide Detective.
‘Special Fraud Division,’ Garcia said at last. ‘Equivalent to our WCCU.’
Hunter thought he’d heard wrong.
The WCCU was the LAPD’s White Collar Crime Unit, which conducted specialized major fraud investigations involving multiple victims and/or suspects. It dealt with offences such as
embezzlements, complex grand thefts, and bribe and theft cases involving city employees or public officials. Inside the LAPD, the WCCU was better known as the type of unit detectives got stuck
with, not asked to be transferred to.
Garcia lifted both hands in surrender. ‘I know, I know. It sucks. But at the moment that’s the only position they’ve got going. Anna also loved that it’s a less risky
job. After what happened, I can’t blame her for that.’
Hunter was about to mention something when the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, listened for about five seconds, then placed the receiver back on its cradle without saying a word.
‘I’ve got to go and see the captain,’ he said, getting up and stepping away from his desk.
Garcia did the same. They stared at each other for a long moment. Garcia was the one who stepped forward, opened his arms and hugged Hunter as if he were a lost brother.