Текст книги "The Executioner"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Hundred and Fourteen

Mollie had spent the day in a cloud of worry. Something wasn’t adding up. She kept having residual flashes, but they were getting stranger and more confusing. It looked like everything was doubling up, as if there were two killers, two sets of victims. She couldn’t make sense of anything anymore, and it was scaring her like never before.

She’d woken up in the middle of the night feeling claustrophobic. Her room was spacious enough, but the air inside felt stale. As she opened her window and allowed the cold and humid Los Angeles winter breeze to caress her face, an uncomfortable feeling made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She felt as if she was being watched. Craning her upper body out of the window, she allowed her eyes to scan the portion of the street she could see from her room. The street was deserted.

Mollie went back to bed, but her mind kept playing tricks on her, keeping her awake for the rest of the night. The sun rose at 6:53 a.m. and finally Mollie was able to relax a little. Nighttime was always harder. For some reason the images came stronger then – more real, more painful.

She finally left her room as the afternoon was coming to an end. Hunger was stinging at her growling stomach. Just down the road, Mollie found a sandwich shop which also sold cakes, sweets and creamed-topped coffees. She ordered a salami and cheese sandwich, a slice of apple pie with ice cream and a hot chocolate before taking a seat at a table close to the shop’s front window.

Hunter had told her that maybe tonight he’d be moving her to another location – a friend’s house, he said, but he still hadn’t called. She finished her pie and was distracted by a short and stout man standing across the road dressed in a Santa Claus outfit. He enthusiastically dangled his oversized golden bell, trying to collect money for some charity. Mollie watched him for at least five minutes. No passerby made a contribution.

‘No one seems to care these days, do they?’ A tall man sitting on the next table commented, noticing Mollie’s attention on Santa Claus.

‘Not really,’ she replied with a sad head shake.

The man was wearing a long black overcoat and a dark, old-fashioned mobster hat. ‘It’s a sad world when people have no heart for charity anymore,’ he said before running his tongue over his cracked lips.

Mollie didn’t know how to reply, so she just smiled and had a sip of her hot chocolate.

‘You’re not from LA, are you?’

She looked at him intrigued.

‘I can spot a Los Angeles smile a mile away. It has a fake edge to it, but not yours. Yours is—’ he paused, searching for the right word ‘—kind, sincere.’

‘Thank you.’ She blushed slightly.

The man noticed her uneasiness and stood up, gathering his things. ‘I hope you enjoy Los Angeles,’ he said, offering his hand.

Mollie shook it with the most delicate of touches. The man’s hand felt strong and powerful.

‘My name’s Ryan, Ryan Turner.’

A new smile blossomed on her lips. ‘I’m Monica.’

‘Enjoy LA, Monica,’ he said again before exiting the shop, approaching Santa Claus and depositing some money into his bucket.

Back at the hotel her bad night’s sleep caught up with her and Mollie kept on dozing off in front of the TV. She wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep when the vision came, but it hit her like a knuckleduster punch to the face.

When she opened her eyes she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, naked and bleeding.

Hundred and Fifteen

If any of the twenty-one faces pinned onto the photograph board had any sort of a police record, their fingerprints would’ve been on file and they could’ve compared them to the partial one they had from the house in Malibu, but that wasn’t the case. Hunter, Garcia and Hopkins were staring at twenty-one all-regular, all-American model citizens. No convictions, no problems with the IRS or any government organization. No jury services or appearances in court. The worst they could come up with were two unpaid parking tickets.

Twenty-one people, whose lives on paper were as adventurous as a glass of milk. Their professions ranged from a university professor to a scriptwriter, from medical doctors to temporarily unemployed.

Their first step was to eliminate anyone under or over six foot two. That left them with twelve possible suspects. After checking with the airlines and passport control, five more names were crossed from the list.

‘We can cut Doctor Pedro Ortiz and Doctor Michael Grifton from our list too,’ Garcia said as he got off the phone. ‘They were both on night shift on the night Father Fabian was attacked.’

‘Jason Lowell was on a camping trip with his students during the weekend Debbie Howard was murdered,’ Hopkins said. ‘He’s off the list as well.’

Hunter rubbed his tired eyes. He’d been up for almost forty-eight hours, and he wasn’t sure they’d find much more from phone calls and database searches. They were looking for someone who had certainly been carrying psychological scars hidden in his subconscious for twenty-five years. Hunter had no doubt something had triggered off the killer’s rage. Something fairly recent. The ‘last straw’.

He knew that identifying what might have pushed the subject over the edge would be hard to do from behind a desk. Things like being dumped, pressure at work, losing your job, big financial difficulties would need detailed investigative work.

‘OK,’ he said, massaging his stiff shoulders. ‘We’ve only got four names left on the list. We know James Reed is missing. Let’s find out where the remaining three are.’

‘Maybe you should bring Mollie here and let her have a look at these pictures,’ Garcia suggested. ‘Maybe she’ll be able to sense something.’

Shit! Hunter checked the time. He needed to call her. He wanted to move her to another location tonight.

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Hopkins agreed.

‘That’s not what she does,’ Hunter said calmly, looking at them both. ‘She can’t control what she sees. And she only senses pain.’

‘Don’t you think it’s worth a shot?’ Garcia insisted. ‘We’re sort of running out of options and time.’

‘No,’ Hunter responded. ‘She’s a seventeen-year-old girl who’s been through more crap than most people would face in a lifetime. She’s alone and she’s scared. And to top it all off, she sees grotesque images of unimaginable suffering.’ His eyes focused on Garcia. ‘You’ve been to three of the five crime scenes. In Malibu you had to leave the room to be sick.’

‘Really?’ Hopkins asked, surprised.

‘Don’t even go there,’ Garcia warned him.

‘We are detectives with the HSS,’ Hunter continued. ‘Special circumstances’ crimes are all we do. We’re the experts, the real tough guys. We’re supposed to be used to it, and it still turns our stomachs inside out. Imagine what being alone and seeing those images – images as real as the ones we saw with our own eyes – could do to a fragile teenage girl. There’s no way in hell I’d bring her here, show her these pictures and ask her to deliberately try to force those visions into her mind.’

The silence that followed indicated that everyone understood Hunter’s position.

His cell phone rang. The caller display showed Mollie’s number. Spooky.

‘Hello, Mollie.’ Hunter moved towards the window. Even through the phone he could feel something wasn’t right. Her breathing was labored, as if she’d been running. ‘What’s wrong?’

Mollie took a deep breath, and Hunter realized she was also crying.

‘Mollie, talk to me. What’s wrong?’

Garcia and Hopkins tensed.

Another deep breath. Hunter heard a car horn. ‘Mollie, are you at the hotel?’

‘No.’ Her voice trembled.

‘Where are you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘I left.’

‘You left the hotel?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. Some time ago.’ Her words dragged, stalled by her tears and the lump in her throat.

‘Calm down, Mollie. Talk to me. What happened? Why did you leave the hotel?’

‘I saw it . . .’ Her tone was becoming hysterical.

‘Take a deep breath, Mollie. What did you see?’ Hunter stood up and reached for his coat.

Silence.

‘Mollie, stay with me. What did you see?’

‘I saw the victim . . .’

‘The victim?’

‘The killer’s next victim. He’s going after the next victim tonight.’

Adrenalin pumped through Hunter’s blood. ‘OK, try to calm down for a sec, Mollie. How do you know it’s the next victim? It could’ve been an earlier one.’

‘Earlier?’

Hunter hesitated for a moment. ‘The visions you had before. The two people you saw. They weren’t the only victims. There were others before them, and there’s been another one since.’

‘No, no. It’s not them. It’s the next victim. I know it,’ she said in a panic-stricken tone.

Hunter was already at the door. ‘How can you be so sure, Mollie?’

‘Because it’s me.’ Her voice faltered. ‘He’s coming after me.’

Hundred and Sixteen

‘Wherever it is that you’re going I’m coming with,’ Garcia said, reaching for his jacket as Hunter ran past him and out into the corridor. ‘What’s going on, Robert?’

Hunter didn’t answer. He didn’t stop or turn around. Garcia only managed to catch up with him when they reached the parking lot.

‘You’re driving,’ Hunter said, pressing the speed dial button on his cell phone. He got the prerecorded message straight away.

‘Where am I going?’ Garcia asked as he turned on the engine.

‘Drive as if you were going to my place. The hotel where Mollie is staying is just three blocks from me.’

‘What happened?’

Hunter recounted the conversation he’d had with Mollie.

‘Holy shit!’ Garcia’s eyes widened. ‘When did she have the vision?’

‘I don’t know. I told you word for word what she said.’

‘And the connection simply went dead?’

A quick nod. ‘As if somebody had snapped the phone shut. I just tried calling her back – voice mail.’ Hunter closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to think clearly. Mollie hadn’t been exact when she told him that she’d left the hotel. That could’ve been ten minutes or five hours ago. She could still be in the hotel vicinity, or miles away by now. But where would she go?

Hunter remembered Mollie mentioning a friend she used to work with called Susan, but that was done in passing and he had no address for her.

‘Did she have any money?’ Garcia asked, eager to help.

Hunter opened his eyes and looked at his partner. ‘Not enough for a ticket anywhere,’ he replied, already knowing what Garcia was thinking. He tried her cell phone again – prerecorded message.

They arrived at the Travel Inn in East Florence Avenue in less than twelve minutes. It was a typical two-story, U-shaped travelers’ hotel found all across America. No need to go through reception to get to the rooms. Both detectives rushed up to number 219 on the second floor. They knocked on the door, tapped on the window and called her name. Mollie wasn’t in.

Hundred and Seventeen

The overweight receptionist at the front desk confirmed that the key to room 219 was in its cubbyhole. That particular Travel Inn hadn’t yet upgraded to the now-conventional key cards, still using the old-fashioned key and massive key-ring combination. Guests at the hotel weren’t requested to leave the key at reception when they were going out. The receptionist hadn’t seen Mollie. The key had been dropped into the express-return box and she had no idea what time that happened.

Hunter flashed his badge, grabbed the key and returned to Mollie’s room. The few things she had with her when he took her there two nights ago were gone, and so was her rucksack. Hunter checked the room and the bed while Garcia took care of the bathroom.

‘Robert, you better come take a look at this.’

Hunter entered the bathroom and froze as his eyes rested on a few drops of blood in the sink. They looked around but there was no sign of a struggle. Nothing seemed disturbed. Hunter examined the blood.

‘What’re you thinking?’ Garcia asked.

‘Nosebleed. Mollie told me she gets them sometimes, mainly after visions.’

‘What do you wanna do?’

Hunter dialed a number on his cell phone. The person at the other end answered it on the second ring.

‘Trevor, it’s Hunter, Robert Hunter. I need you to do me a favor.’

Trevor Tollino was the most senior officer with the Special Operations Bureau of the LAPD, and a close friend.

‘What do you need, Robert?’ he murmured down the phone. Trevor used to be a field cop, but during a gunfire exchange with a drug gang in south LA he was hit in the neck. The bullet damaged his vocal cords, and after two operations he was left with a soft whispering voice. Hunter was the one who risked his life to pull a bleeding Trevor back to cover.

‘I need you to track down the location of a cell phone. It’s equipped with the latest GPS chip.’

‘Even with GPS, cell phones can be tricky to trace, Robert. If the phone’s on, it should take a few minutes. If the phone’s been turned off, then we’ve got a problem.’

‘Can you give it a try?’ Hunter said, giving Trevor Mollie’s number and all the information he’d copied down when he purchased the phone. ‘Call me back as soon as you have something.’

There was a pause. ‘Is this an official request, Robert?’

‘It’s a life-or-death request.’

Another short pause. ‘No problem. Leave it with me. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’

Hunter paced the room and checked the window a couple of times. From the room he could see a small section of the street below and nothing else.

His phone rang, making Garcia jump on his seat.

‘Trevor, talk to me?’

‘I’ve got nothing, Robert. I can’t triangulate on it. The phone has either run out of battery or it’s been switched off. What I do have is the general location of its last call.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘The call was made to your phone.’

‘And the location?’

‘Firestone Boulevard in Downey.’

‘What? Downey is about seven miles from here. Can you give me a more specific location?’

‘Sorry, Robert. The call didn’t last long enough for me to properly close in on it. The best I could do was to narrow its location down to a general area. The phone was last active somewhere around the junction of Firestone and Lakewood.’ A brief pause. ‘After that it simply vanished.’

Hundred and Eighteen

Hunter took a moment to rearrange his thoughts. There were four possibilities swimming around in his head. One – Mollie had been too spooked by her new vision and was now wandering the streets of LA with no real objective. Two – she’d decided to leave Los Angeles; after all, she’d thought about it before. Three – she’d looked up a friend, possibly the Susan woman she’d mentioned in passing. And four – she’d been abducted.

Mollie didn’t have enough cash for an air ticket, and there was no rail or bus station anywhere around Downey. If she was thinking about leaving LA, she had gone to the wrong part of town. Downey was also too far for her to have aimlessly walked there in a panic. There had to be a reason why her call to Hunter had come from a place seven and a half miles away from where the hotel was.

‘Robert,’ Garcia called again. ‘Are you OK? What do you think we should do?’

‘We’ve gotta go to Downey. According to Trevor, that’s where she was when we got disconnected.’ He instinctively checked his watch. ‘That was no more than twenty minutes ago. She wasn’t indoors. I heard traffic noise through the phone, and Trevor said the call was made from Firestone Boulevard. She might still be there somewhere.’

‘OK, let’s go.’

Firestone and Lakewood are two large and very busy boulevards in Downey, southeast Los Angeles. Garcia made the journey in less than twenty minutes.

‘Shit!’ he whispered as they got to the junction.

They were looking at Stonewood Center mall – a massive shopping complex of over a hundred and seventy stores. But that wasn’t all. Moving west from the junction, up Firestone Boulevard, was a carnival of smaller malls and stores – a shopper’s paradise.

There was a long line of cars at the entrance to Stonewood Center’s parking lot. Garcia slowed down, as if he was about to join the back of it. The streets were heaving with people carrying bags, packets and different-size boxes. Two days of shopping left until Christmas Day – every shop was open late, and the malls looked like an ant house at mealtime. They didn’t know what Mollie was wearing and they had no picture of her. Even if they did, who’d they ask? With the number of people Christmas shopping at this hour, they were looking at the proverbial needle in a haystack situation.

Hunter massaged the rough, ugly scar on his nape. Their best shot of finding Mollie at the moment was if she switched her phone back on. He’d asked Trevor to keep trying to pick up a track signal on it. If it came back into the grid, they’d know. But why had it been switched off?

Impulse was telling Hunter to search the crowds, but reason told him it would be a waste of time. There was nothing they could do from there. Hunter told Garcia not to join the line of cars.

‘We’ve gotta go back to the RHD and coordinate from there.’

As Garcia swerved his car away from the parking lot line and rejoined traffic, Hunter closed his eyes. Mollie’s last words still echoed in his ears.

‘He’s coming after me tonight.’

Hundred and Nineteen

Captain Blake was standing in front of the new picture board, studying the four suspects’ photographs left on it, when Hunter and Garcia arrived back at the RHD. Hopkins had already brought her up to speed with the latest developments.

‘There’s one thing I forgot to tell you about me when we first met,’ Captain Blake said calmly, closing the door once Hunter and Garcia reached their desks. ‘I’m not the kind of person who swears easily.’ She lifted both hands in an ‘I admit’ gesture. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Miss Goody Two Shoes. Sometimes you need to swear to properly express yourself. In my case that happens only when I’m really pissed off.’

‘Are we in any danger of you getting to the point anytime soon, captain?’

‘Shut the fuck up and listen, Robert. Does this look like a fucking two-way conversation to you?’ Her calm tone had vanished. ‘Do you two have shit for brains, or are you both just plain imbeciles? I’m getting goddamn tired of repeating myself to you. What did I fucking tell you two? I told you I wanted to be informed the second you located the psychic girl. Do you wanna know what I just found out?’ Her heels clicked as she paced the room. ‘I just found out that you not only knew where the girl was, but you transferred her into a hotel, and now you fucking lost her. Shit, Robert.’ The captain slammed her closed fist on his desk with an emphatic thump. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’

Hunter kept his voice even. ‘Because I know what would’ve happened, captain. You would’ve brought her here, stuck her in an interrogation room and bombarded her with questions she wouldn’t have been able to answer. Not because she wanted to hide anything, but because she simply doesn’t know the answers. I’ve asked her everything that could be asked. She doesn’t know why she sees the things she sees, and she can’t control it.’ Hunter breathed in sharply. ‘If she made it into your report, I’m sure Chief Collins or Mayor Edwards would’ve requested she’d be interviewed by a psychologist, who’d certainly be looking to discredit her rather than understand.’

‘You’re a goddamn psychologist,’ the captain shot back angrily. ‘You could’ve done the interview yourself.’

‘Do you think the mayor would’ve allowed me to conduct the interview?’

‘I told you I’d deal with the mayor. He’s my problem, not yours. I always stand behind my detectives, but you don’t seem to wanna trust me. I would’ve listened to you first, Robert.’

Hunter ran his hand through his hair.

‘Now, the chief and the mayor will inevitably hear about this, via my report or not. And all of a sudden the pressure that I’m already under will start to reach boiling point. The two of you have undermined my authority twice. If I don’t take action, I’m gonna look weak in my position as captain, not only to them, but to everyone in this department and the LAPD.’

‘What do you mean by “take action”?’ Garcia asked.

‘I mean suspend your asses.’

Hundred and Twenty

‘Wait a second, captain.’ Hunter shot to his feet. ‘You can’t suspend us. Not now.’

Captain Blake chuckled. ‘I can do what the fuck I like, Robert. You’re the only two people who don’t seem to have noticed that I run this division.’

‘Captain, you can’t do that.’ Hunter tried to calm his voice. ‘There’s no time for any other detective to hit the ground running with this case.’ He paused. ‘The killer will strike again tonight.’

The captain’s gaze held Hunter motionless. ‘You better start talking to me, detective. And you better come as clean as morning rain.’

This time Hunter told Captain Blake everything.

‘And this phone you gave her – is it still switched off?’

‘Trevor told me he’d call the second it came back on the grid.’

The captain paced the room as she considered what to do. ‘We can’t even mobilize units, Robert. This girl could be anywhere. And I don’t even know if I should believe any of this shit you just told me. All I have to go on are crazy visions from a seventeen-year-old girl who I never really met.’

‘You have our opinion to go on, captain.’ Hunter shook his head gently. ‘She’s not a fake.’

‘Why should I believe you, Robert? You’ve been everything but straight with me.’

‘OK captain, I admit, I screwed up, but not because I wanted to piss you off or undermine your authority or show disrespect. I did what I did because I wanted to protect a seventeen-year-old girl from the destructive circus she was about to be thrown into. Interrogations, people doubting her, the press, the mockery . . . Most people would crack under much less pressure. Mollie doesn’t deserve that. She just wanted to help, and in her heart she believed she could.’ Hunter paused for air. ‘You can do whatever you like, captain. You can bust me down to traffic duty when this case is over if it pleases you, but you can’t pull us off this investigation now. This killer’s on a revenge mission. He won’t keep on killing. After he gets his revenge, he’ll disappear, I’m certain of that. We’ve only got seven days, captain. And he’s only got two more names on his list.’

‘Three if he’s really going after Mollie tonight,’ Garcia noted.

‘Exactly, but Mollie wasn’t part of his original plan.’

The captain narrowed her eyes as a hint of confusion crossed her face.

‘By going after Mollie, the killer’s breaking away from his own schedule, his own rules,’ Hunter clarified.

‘And when they deviate from their original plan, that’s when they make mistakes,’ Garcia complemented.

The captain looked unsure. ‘We’ve got protocols to follow, Robert.’

‘With all due respect, captain, fuck protocol. I’m not putting a set of bullshit, bureaucratic rules over anyone’s life,’ Hunter said firmly, to Barbara Blake’s surprise. ‘Captain Bolter told me you were a great cop. You had great instincts. You always followed your gut feelings. You must’ve withheld information from your superior officers for one reason or another at least once in your career. We all do it – including the chief of police. It doesn’t make us bad cops, captain. It actually makes us real cops.’ He studied her. ‘What’s your gut feeling telling you now?’

Captain Blake closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. ‘Let me ask you something, detective. Do you think that reporter from the LA Times, Claire Anderson, knew where to find Mollie? Maybe knew you’d taken her to a hotel?’

Hunter tilted his head, reflecting. ‘Possible. Reporters have their own sources, their own investigative team. Claire is certainly ambitious enough. Why?’

Barbara Blake faced Hunter. ‘She was found murdered this afternoon.’

‘What?’ Hunter cocked his head forward as if he hadn’t heard it correctly.

‘Her throat was cut open.’

‘No way?’ Garcia murmured, his eyes wide.

‘That’s all the information I have at the moment. Detectives and forensics are still at the scene. But if our killer is really after Mollie, and Claire Anderson had any information that could’ve led him to her, the possibility he killed her for that information has suddenly become very real.’