‘This is the only other photograph I found.’ She showed them the last picture she had with her, the one that had made her blood run cold.
Everyone tensed. Time appeared to slow down inside that basement.
The photograph was taken as the subject was crossing a busy road, but this time they didn’t need to search for a name. They didn’t even need to track the subject down. They were all looking at a photograph of Robert Hunter, with a red circle drawn around his face.
One Hundred and Eight
Garcia and Captain Blake paused mid-breath, their gazes drawn to the picture in Michelle’s hands like insects to a blue light. Everyone inside that room seemed to be filled with an odd, disquieting fear, except for Hunter. He simply shook his head, unfazed, taking the picture from Michelle’s hands.
‘This is not a concern,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’s not even surprising.’
‘What do you mean,
it’s not a concern
?’ Michelle said.
‘Because whatever Graham Fisher had planned for me, he’ll now have to reconsider, readjust, readapt, because as soon as his picture hits the news, he’ll know that he’s not a cyber ghost anymore. We now know who he is. He’ll know that we’ve been to his house, to his basement, and that we’ve found all of this.’ He indicated the room and the pictures. ‘Which means that he’ll also know that now I’m the one doing the hunting.’
‘Yeah, but we’re talking about a highly intelligent and skillful killer here,’ Michelle came back. ‘You still need to be careful.’
‘I always am. But I’m not the priority here.’ Hunter showed everyone the photograph of the young blonde woman again. ‘She is. She would’ve been the next victim on his list whether we had his identity or not, not me.’
‘How do you know that?’ Captain Blake asked.
‘Because he would’ve wanted me to be last,’ Hunter explained. ‘It’s part of his revenge exercise. He wants me to watch all the victims die in real time, without being able to help them. Just like I watched his son die, without being able to save him.’
‘But that wasn’t your fault,’ Captain Blake said.
‘To Graham Fisher, it was. In his mind, I could’ve saved his son. I could’ve done more. But all that doesn’t matter. What matters is finding who this woman is.’ Hunter indicated the photograph once again. ‘She’s no doubt somehow linked to Graham’s son’s suicide, or the aftermath of it, like all the previous victims.’
‘Another reporter?’ Garcia suggested. ‘Or maybe the webmaster of that shock-video website where the video of Brandon Fisher’s suicide appeared?’
‘Maybe,’ Hunter agreed with a firm head nod. ‘Let’s get some people looking into that.’
Garcia nodded. ‘I’ll get a team on it.’
Hunter addressed Captain Blake. ‘We’ve got to get this picture over to the press together with Graham’s ASAP. We need to find out who she is, where she lives, where she works, everything. For all we know, he might already have her.’
One Hundred and Nine
Captain Blake called Hunter an hour and a half later. She had returned to the PAB with the woman’s photograph while Hunter, Garcia and Michelle stayed behind. They wanted to slowly go through every inch of Graham Fisher’s house. Five experienced police officers and two forensics agents had also joined them.
The captain told Hunter that she had handed the woman’s photograph to the LAPD Media Relations Office, with specific instructions. They had immediately flexed their muscles, contacting the city’s press and media. The woman’s photo, together with Graham’s, were to appear on all major TV channels in a special bulletin during the lunchtime news, and then again during the afternoon and evening news. The photographs would also be published in the next edition of all city newspapers, but that wouldn’t be until tomorrow morning. Radio stations had also been contacted. They were urging listeners to log onto a special web page that the LAPD IT Department had set up with both photographs. Special call-in lines were already in place. They were now just waiting for developments.
Back in Graham Fisher’s house, Hunter and Garcia started with the basement, bringing in two powerful forensics lights to do away with all the shadows. Garcia worked his way through everything found at the east end of the room, while Hunter meticulously examined the glass cage and the glass coffin found by the west wall.
Neither of the two torture and murder devices could tell Hunter something he didn’t already know. The craftsmanship had been exceptional, but he expected nothing less from someone like Graham Fisher. The glass sheets used to create both devices were a combination of polycarbonate, thermoplastic and layers of laminated glass, making them bulletproof and totally unbreakable by human fists. But Graham had told him that over the phone. Hunter didn’t expect him to be lying. The smell inside both glass containers was a sickening mixture of vomit, urine, feces, fear and very strong disinfectant. In the glass coffin, the dead tarantula hawks added a new, distinct, sour layer to the overall odor. Despite wearing a nose and mouth mask, Hunter felt the urge to throw up a few times, forcing him to take several breaks.
‘Do you think he already has the woman on the photo?’ Garcia asked, as Hunter joined him at the west end of the room.
Hunter took a deep breath, allowing his gaze to settle on the large tools cabinet. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally replied. He didn’t want to say it, but the truth was that Hunter had a terrible gut feeling about all this.
‘There’s something I want to show you,’ Garcia said, stirring Hunter’s attention to a specific spot on the wooden worktable. ‘Have a look at this.’
Hunter looked at the spot Garcia was pointing to, frowned, then crouched down to look at it from even closer.
‘Can you see it?’
Hunter nodded. Regular house dust had settled on the worktable, probably two days’ worth of it. At that particular spot, it had settled in an uneven pattern. Something that used to be on that table had been removed – a rectangular object of about fourteen inches by ten. Hunter moved closer still, examining a second uneven dust pattern, this one thin and long, dragging all the way to the edge of the worktable. He checked the brick wall on that side and saw that about a foot from the floor a power socket had been fitted to it.
‘A laptop computer,’ Hunter ultimately said.
Garcia nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking. And if we’re right, you know what that means, right? Graham probably kept all his plans, drawings, names, timetables, sketches . . . whatever in the laptop that used to be here, not in the desktop computer upstairs.’
Michelle Kelly had taken charge of searching through the desktop computer inside Graham’s office upstairs. Not surprisingly, the computer was password protected, but not by the simple, relatively easy-to-break, original operating system password application, but by a custom-made one, no doubt developed by Graham himself. Trying to breach that protection right there and then, without some of the tools and gadgets she had back at the FBI Cybercrime Division, was an impossible task. Hunter gave her the go-ahead to take the computer back to the FBI headquarters and proceed from there. She would contact them with news as soon as she had any. So far, nothing.
Hunter nodded his agreement to Garcia’s suggestion. ‘Let’s hope we’re wrong. If there’s anything in that desktop computer, even if it’s only a residue of something, I’m sure Michelle will find it.’
They finally moved from the basement, and both detectives unashamedly breathed a sigh of relief.
The officers who were tasked with the door-to-door around Graham’s street, and some of the neighboring ones, came back with no news. Not every neighbor was home, but the few who were could shine no light on the identity of the woman in the photograph they found inside Graham’s basement, or on where Graham might’ve gone. One thing was consistent, though. They had all said that since his son’s death, Graham had become a different man – withdrawn, isolated, uncommunicative. Since his wife passed away, he had become a ghost, barely seen by anyone.
Hunter and Garcia spent almost two hours going through every scrap of paper, every book, every magazine, every note they found inside Graham’s office upstairs. None of it gave them anything to work with.
By mid-afternoon Hunter received a call from Detective Perez. He explained that after the lunchtime news the call-in lines had already received several tips about the woman’s identity. Detectives and officers were checking the veracity of those tips, and he would get back to Hunter as soon as they had something more solid.
Another hour and a half came and went without a single new piece of development. Garcia had gone back to the PAB to help Detective Perez with the call-in lines.
Hunter was sitting alone inside Graham’s son’s bedroom when his cellphone beeped, announcing a new text message. He checked the display window –
unknown number.
Hunter opened the text message and was immediately filled with a disquieting anxiety.
Well done, Detective Hunter, you finally managed to put all the clues together. Unfortunately for you, that has only led you to my house – my empty house. I hope you are having fun. Found anything interesting yet? I have.
As Hunter finished reading the message, his phone beeped again. Part two of the text message had arrived.
I took the liberty to track your phone’s location. I can see you’re still in my house, so here’s where this game gets really fun. You, and you ALONE, have 7 mins to make it to St Mary’s Church on the intersection of E. 4th St and S. Chicago St. That’s seven blocks away. Don’t drive – run. I’m sending you something to persuade you.
Another beep.
Another message.
This one started with an image.
An image that sent the room spinning around Hunter, making him feel as if all of a sudden all the oxygen had been sucked from his lungs.
He was looking at a photograph of a woman gagged and strapped onto a metal chair. The same woman he saw on the photograph they’d found down in the basement. The message read:
‘
7 mins, or she dies. You tell anyone, including your partner, and I will kill her so slowly it will take her a month to die. The clock is ticking, Detective Hunter – 6:59, 6:58, 6:57 – LOL.
One Hundred and Ten
Hunter came charging down the stairs like a bullet train, clearing the hall, the living room, and exiting the house in three seconds flat.
The two police officers who were standing by the house’s front porch were taken by complete surprise. It took them about 1.5 seconds to get over the initial shock and react, instinctively reaching for their guns before quickly turning on the balls of their feet and anxiously aiming at the open door and the empty living room beyond it.
‘Wha . . . What’s going on?’ one of them called out in a nervous voice.
‘Fuck if I know,’ the second officer replied, resisting the urge to check the street behind him to see where Hunter had gone. If they were about to face any sort of threat, it was coming from inside the house, not from the street.
Five seconds passed and nothing.
Both officers began craning their necks to one side, in a quick jab motion, peeking into the house like chickens on drugs.
‘See anything?’ the first officer asked.
‘Not a damn thing.’
After another couple of seconds the first officer stepped up to the door and looked inside. The second officer assumed cover position.
‘There’s nothing here.’
‘What the hell?’ The second officer holstered his weapon and swung around looking for Hunter. He was nowhere to be seen. ‘What the fuck was that all about? That homicide detective just hauled ass down the street as if he were on fire.’
The first officer shrugged and holstered his weapon. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone, man, didn’t you see? He was going faster than Usain Bolt.’
‘Maybe he finally lost it. It’s a common thing with Homicide Special detectives. You already need to be nuts to join that group.’
Hunter had used a back alleyway to cut through to South Chicago Street. As he reached the main road, he turned left and ran as fast as he could. A million questions were tumbling over inside his head, but he just didn’t have the time to think about any of them.
He was about three city blocks from St Mary’s Church, when he peeked at his watch. He had less than three minutes to make it.
As he reached the next intersection along – East 6th Street – Hunter paid no attention to the traffic or the red pedestrian crossing light.
A white van, driving east on that road, saw him way too late as he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, stepping directly in front of the van. The driver slammed on the brakes hard, killing the van’s speed almost immediately, but not fast enough. Hunter collided with the front of the van and was thrown sideways to the ground, smashing his left arm and shoulder against the asphalt.
‘What the fuck?’ the van driver yelled, wide-eyed, jumping out of his vehicle. ‘Are you trying to fucking kill yourself, crazy man?’
Hunter rolled over twice and quickly scrambled on his hands and toes, trying to get back up. His legs finally found the traction he needed, and just like that he was back on his feet.
‘Didn’t you see the red light, you crazy fuc—’ the driver began, but as Hunter moved he saw Hunter’s gun tucked away in his shoulder holster. ‘Yo, it’s all cool, dawg,’ the driver said in a much less aggressive tone, taking a step back and showing Hunter his palms. ‘My bad all the way. I should’ve been paying more attention. You good?’
Hunter didn’t even look at him. He cut through the small, intrigued crowd that had already gathered on the sidewalk and moved on.
Hunter had handled the fall pretty well, but the collision with the van had hurt his right knee. He could feel it stabbing at him with every new step, forcing him to reduce his speed and limp awkwardly. But he wasn’t far now. He could see the bell tower of St. Mary’s Church just at the top of the road.
Out of breath and with his knee starting to scream at him, Hunter made it to the intersection in 6 minutes 53 seconds. There was no one there.
‘What the hell?’ he puffed the words out, while reaching for his phone.