The Night Stalker (43 page)

‘Could his feelings have mutated into a combination of maternal and romantic love all rolled up into one?’

Hunter considered the theory. ‘It’s possible, why?’

‘OK, it’s my turn. Let me show you what I found out.’ Garcia flipped open the folder he’d brought with him and took out the music magazine he’d found in Jessica Black’s apartment. He quickly ran Hunter through what had happened with Mark Stratton, how he’d failed to control himself, and how he’d completely trashed a possible abduction scene. ‘By chance I came across this magazine when I was in their apartment. There’s an interview with Jessica Black in it. In a particular section, the interviewer asked her about love.’

‘What about it?’

‘He asked her what true love meant to her.’ Garcia pushed the magazine over to Hunter and pointed to some highlighted lines. ‘That was her answer.’

Hunter’s eyes went over the lines and he paused. His heart skipped several beats. He read them again.

‘To me true love is something uncontrollable. Like a fire that burns really bright inside you and consumes everything around it.’

‘A fire that burns bright inside you?’ Garcia said, shaking his head. ‘It didn’t sound like a coincidence to me. So I went back to the office and searched the net . . . found nothing. I then remembered you told me how good the magazine archives were at the public library, so I took a trip downtown.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘I found this.’ From the folder he retrieved a copy of the printout he had got from the library and pushed it over towards Hunter. ‘An interview with Kelly Jensen for
Art Today
magazine. Another question about true love and how she viewed the subject.’ He pointed to the highlighted lines. ‘Check her answer out.’

Love hurts, and true love hurts even more. I must admit that I haven’t been very lucky in that department. My last experience was very painful to me. It made me realize that love can be like a crazy knife that sits inside you, and at any moment it can simply flick open. And when it does it cuts you. It slices through everything inside you. It makes you bleed. And there’s very little you can do about it.

‘Shit,’ Hunter whispered, running a hand through his hair.

‘In the library I couldn’t find any similar articles on Laura Mitchell. Then I had this crazy idea of going back to James Smith’s apartment.’

‘Best collection of magazines and articles you’ll ever find on Laura.’

‘Exactly,’ Garcia agreed. ‘It took me a few hours, but I found this.’ He handed Hunter the copy of
Contemporary
Painters.

Another question about love. Hunter read the highlighted lines –
True love is the most incredible thing. Something you can’t control. Something that explodes inside you like a bomb when you’re least expecting it and you’re totally consumed by it.

‘He’s giving them love,’ Garcia said. ‘Not his love, but what they consider to be true love, according to what he’d read. According to their own words.’

Hunter agreed mutely. ‘His mind is in a real mess. He’s got no understanding of what love is. And I’m not surprised. To Andrew real love was what his parents had between them, but what he witnessed that night shattered that understanding into a million little pieces, and he’s been trying to put them back together ever since.’

‘OK, but why now?’ Garcia asked. ‘If the trauma occurred twenty years ago, why is he only acting now?’

‘Traumas aren’t straightforward, Carlos,’ Hunter explained, ‘no psychological wound is. Many traumas suffered by people at one stage or another in their lives will never manifest themselves into actions. A lot of the time not even the traumatized person knows what catalyzes it. It just suddenly explodes inside their heads and they have no control over themselves. In Andrew’s case, just seeing Laura, Kelly or Jessica’s picture on a magazine or newspaper could’ve done it.’

‘Because they didn’t just resemble his mother physically, but they were the same age she was when she died, and they were all artists.’

‘Exactly.’ Hunter’s cell phone started ringing – the screen said
Restricted Call
.

‘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 . . . ?’

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.’

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.’

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. ‘Because 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.’