Текст книги "One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке)"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

No reply.

‘I think you’re an incredible and beautiful person,’ Bobby continued. ‘I’m in love with you, Lucy. I don’t get why age has to change that.’

‘Are you getting this crock of shit?’ Harry said into his microphone.

‘Yep, every word,’ Michelle replied. ‘He’s one sick slimeball.’

Lucy said nothing. She just sat there, looking hurt.

‘Could we go for a walk and talk some more?’ Bobby said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you so much.’

‘OK, that’s it,’ Michelle said, checking her watch. ‘I’m ending this shit right now.’

Out of the six young girls the FBI knew Bobby had had sex with, only one had agreed to cooperate. She was twelve. But one was all they needed. All she had to do was pick him out from a lineup, and they had him. Michelle also knew that once they had Bobby in custody, and one of the victims had cooperated, the others would also come forth and point their fingers.

Michelle pulled her earbuds out of her ears, strolled up to where Lucy and Bobby were sitting and simply stood in front of Bobby for a moment, sizing him up.

Bobby looked at her and frowned. ‘Can I help you?’

Michelle smiled. ‘Can youhelp me?No.’ She asked and answered, gesticulating at the same time. ‘Can Ihelp you?No. Can youhelp yourself?No. Are you a sick scumbag who deserves to rot in prison? Positively yes.’ She pulled out her credentials. ‘FBI, you sack o’ shit. We need to talk to you about some of your online chat-room activity.’

For a second everyone remained still, then, in a flash, Bobby came alive. He jumped up and slammed the top of his head into Michelle’s chin. The brutal impact sent her head flying back as if she had been shot. Her jaw slammed against her skull with such force that her vision instantly blurred. Blood flew up in the air from the fresh cut on her lip. She stumbled backward awkwardly, her body half limp, her legs too jellified to keep her up. She hit the ground like a puppet on severed strings.

Bobby jumped over the bench and made a run for it in the direction of Oceanfront Walk.

Thirty-Nine

‘What?’ Garcia said into his phone. Emilio’s words had caught him completely by surprise. ‘Wait a second, Emilio. Let me put you on speakerphone.’ Garcia clicked a button and returned the receiver to its cradle. ‘Go ahead, say that again.’

Hunter looked at Garcia.

‘The woman in that picture you gave me on Saturday when you came by the shop. I now know where I saw her before. I’m actually looking at her right now.’

It was Hunter’s turn to look baffled. ‘What? Emilio, this is Detective Hunter. What do you mean, you are looking at her right now?Where are you?’

‘I’m at home. And what I mean is, I’m looking at another picture of her right now.’

‘Another picture?’ Garcia asked.

‘That’s right. A picture in yesterday’s newspaper.’

Garcia frowned. ‘The press caught up with the video?’ he asked Hunter.

‘Not that I’m aware of. Captain Blake would’ve been going apeshit if the press was onto this.’

‘You saw her in yesterday’s paper?’ Garcia returned his attention to the phone. ‘Which one?’

‘The LA Times,’ Emilio answered.

Instinctively Hunter and Garcia’s gaze shot to the only window in their office. The LA Timesheadquarters was literally across the road from the Police Administration Building. It was the first edifice they saw when they looked out of their window.

‘But she isn’t part of the news,’ Emilio said. ‘The story isn’t about her.’

A moment of confused looks.

‘She’s the reporter.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why she looked so familiar to me. My girlfriend loves to read the entertainment supplement of the LA Timeson Sundays, mainly the celebrity gossip part. She’s into that kind of stuff, you know? Sometimes I flip through it myself. Anyway, that woman writes a column in the entertainment supplement. There’s always a small picture of her at the top of whatever article she wrote that week. And that’s why she looked so familiar. I’d seen her picture before several times.’

Garcia was writing something down on a notepad.

‘I didn’t look at the paper yesterday. I was working,’ Emilio explained. ‘I’m off today. I was just having a quick look through yesterday’s paper before I threw it away, and there she was.’

‘What’s her name?’ Hunter asked.

‘Christina, Christina Stevenson.’

Hunter typed her name into an Internet search engine. Within a few seconds he had her picture on his screen. Emilio was right. There was no doubt Christina Stevenson was their second victim, unless she had an identical twin or a clone working for the LA Times.

‘Great job, Emilio,’ Garcia said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ He disconnected.

Hunter was scanning through the information on one of the pages he had on his screen.

‘What have you got?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not much. Christina Stevenson, twenty-nine years old. She’d been with the LA Timesfor six years. The last two of those she spent with the entertainment desk, which is called by many the gossip pit. That’s all the personal information I have here.’

‘She was a gossip reporter?’ Garcia asked.

‘It looks that way.’

‘Damn, no one makes more enemies than they do, not even us.’

Garcia was right. In a city like LA, where to so many being in the public eye was as important as breathing air, gossip reporters could make or break anyone’s career. They could destroy a person’s relationship, break their family homes, expose dirty secrets, do almost anything they liked. And the worst of all was that it didn’t even have to be true. In LA the smallest of rumors could completely change someone’s life, for better or worse. Gossip reporters were known for having false friends, and real enemies.

Hunter hesitated for a second, pondering a few things over.

Garcia knew exactly what Hunter was debating in his head. If they started asking questions inside the headquarters of the LA Times, there was no hiding this story anymore. A story that, so far, no newspaper or TV news channel had picked up on. It was like taking raw meat to a pack of hungry wolves, even if the raw meat was one of their own. No information would be forthcoming, because reporters love to obtain it, but they hate giving it away.

‘So what do you want to do?’ Garcia asked. ‘Start asking questions at the Times?’

‘We’ll have to. If the victim was a reporter there, there’s no escaping it, but not just yet.’ Hunter reached for the phone on his desk and called the research team. He asked them to find out everything they could on Christina Stevenson, but more important he needed her home address ASAP. They could start there.

A minute later his phone rang.

‘Do we have an address already?’ Hunter said into the phone.

‘Um . . . Detective Robert Hunter?’ a male voice asked.

Hunter paused. ‘Yes. This is Detective Robert Hunter. Who is this?’

‘This is Detective Martin Sanchez with the Santa Monica Police Department.’

‘How can I help you, Detective Sanchez?’

‘Well, earlier this morning one of our patrol cars, answering a 911 call, found a female body at a private parking lot near Marine Park in Santa Monica.’ Sanchez paused to clear his throat. ‘Somebody left a note with the body. Your name is on it.’

Forty

It took several seconds for the blurriness to dissipate from Michelle’s vision, and even then bright spots of light seemed to be exploding everywhere. Her entire head hurt as if it was being gradually squeezed in a vise. She could feel her bottom lip pulsating from the blood pressure so ferociously she thought it would blow up like an air balloon.

‘Are you OK?’ Sophie asked. She was kneeling next to Michelle, holding her head in her hands. Everything had happened so fast she’d had no time to react.

Michelle looked at her with dopey eyes. No recognition. Her brain still wasn’t registering much.

‘Michelle, are you OK?’ Harry’s voice came through her earbuds dangling from her neck. Harry was already running down East Market Street in the direction of the skate park. All bets were off.

‘Michelle?’ Sophie called again.

Suddenly, just like being woken up by a bucket of cold water to the face, her brain re-engaged. Her eyes refocused on Sophie’s face, and everything came back to her in a flash. Her hand shot to her lip and she winced as her fingertips touched it. She pulled her hand away and looked at it.

Blood.

Confusion was immediately replaced by anger.

‘Oh no, he didn’t,’ she said to herself, quickly returning her earbuds to her ears.

‘Bird is trying to fly,’ she heard Harry say.

‘Like hell he is,’ Michelle replied.

‘Michelle, are you all right?’ Harry asked, sounding a little relieved and out of breath at the same time.

‘I’ll live,’ she replied in an angry voice.

‘That was one hell of a headbutt.’

‘Stop worrying about me, goddammit,’ she blurted into her microphone. ‘Somebody pin Bobby’s bitch-ass down.’

‘We’re already on it.’

As soon as Bobby had headbutted Michelle and run for it, the undercover agent at the beach had kneeled down by his German shepherd and pointed at Bobby, running away in the distance. ‘Take him down, boy. Take him down.’

The dog had taken off like a rocket.

Bobby was fast, but not fast enough. The dog was able to get to him in just a couple of seconds.

The takedowncommand instructed the dog to simply use its body weight to drop a fleeing subject to the ground. A fully developed German shepherd with running momentum produced an impact force equivalent to being hit by a motorbike at 25mph.

Bobby was catapulted forward and onto the ground, hitting the deck hard.

Fifteen minutes later Bobby was sitting in the backseat of a tinted, unmarked SUV, parked in a back alley around Venice Beach. His hands were cuffed behind his back. An FBI agent was sitting to his left. Michelle Kelly and Harry Mills were sitting directly in front of him.

Bobby kept his head low. His eyes on his knees.

‘You sucker-punch sonofabitch,’ Michelle said, touching her swollen lip again.

Bobby didn’t look up.

‘But it’s all good,’ Michelle carried on. ‘Because guess what? We’ve got your sorry ass. And you’re not going anywhere for a very long time.’

Bobby said nothing.

Michelle picked up Bobby’s backpack, unzipped it and dumped all its contents on the floor between them. There wasn’t much: several different chocolate bars, various packs of gum, three bottles of soda, a small, squared gift box with a red ribbon, a map of the area and a key on a keychain. No wallet. No driver’s license. No identification of any kind. Bobby had already been searched. He had nothing on him.

‘So what do we have here?’ Michelle said, rummaging through everything.

Bobby’s eyes followed her hands. ‘Don’t you need a warrant for that? That’s private proper . . . urgh.’

The agent’s elbow connected with Bobby’s ribcage.

‘If I were you,’ the agent said. ‘I’d limit myself to answering the questions you’re asked, or else this thing can get very ugly, very quickly . . . For you, that is.’

Michelle picked up the chocolate bars, together with the packs of gum and the bottles of soda, and passed them over to Harry. ‘Let’s get these to the lab ASAP,’ she said, before looking back at Bobby. ‘I’m willing to bet your freedom that at least some of those are drugged.’

No answer. Bobby’s eyes went back to his knees.

Michelle smiled. ‘And what is this?’ She reached for the gift box. The tag on it said To Lucy, with love.She undid the ribbon and pulled the lid open.

Harry’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re kidding me.’

Michelle stared at the gift inside with angry eyes. ‘Red lacy underwear?’ she finally said. ‘You thought Lucy was thirteen years old, and you bought her lacy panties?’ She looked at Harry. ‘Somebody give me a gun and I’ll shoot this barf-bag in the face, right now.’

Bobby shifted nervously in his seat.

‘You know, it doesn’t really matter that you don’t want to talk right now, or give us your real name, or anything. Because we’ve got this.’ Michelle held up the key and keychain that was inside Bobby’s backpack. The key ring simply said 103.‘We now know that you got yourself a shitty hotel room somewhere not very far from here. It might take us a few hours, but we’ll find the hotel, and whatever else you left behind in that room. I bet we’ll find a wallet and an identity.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Actually, I bet we’ll find a laptop or a smartphone.’ Michelle leaned forward, her face just inches away from Bobby’s. She could smell his cheap cologne. His minty breath. She smiled at him. ‘You can’t even begin to imagine what we can extract out of a laptop or a smartphone’s hard drive. You see, Bobby, all those months in the chat rooms, and you had no idea you were chatting to me.I’m your Lucy.’ Michelle allowed the weight of those words to crash down on Bobby for a moment. ‘This is checkmate, buddy. Whichever way you play it, the game is over.’

Forty-One

The address they were given revealed a small, squared, two-story office building in Dewey Street, just behind Marine Park in Santa Monica. It took Hunter and Garcia forty-seven minutes to make the journey from the PAB. The outside of the old building was littered with For Saleand For Leasesigns.

Hunter wondered who in their sane mind would want to buy or rent any office space in a building that looked to have been so terribly neglected in the past few years – tired and discolored bricks, ill-fitted windows and dark rainwater marks coming down from the roof like some sort of muddy icing on a cake.

The parking lot was hidden behind the property, away from the main street. Weeds were sprouting up through a web of cracks. Of the eight car spaces, only one was taken – a red Ford Fusion. Several wooden crates were pushed up against the wall, just a few yards from the car. The entrance to the parking lot had been sealed off by the Santa Monica Police Department with yellow crime-scene tape. A crowd had formed outside the perimeter, and though nothing could be seen from where they were standing, no one looked prepared to move an inch. Some were actually drinking coffee out of a thermos while they waited.

Hunter and Garcia parked in front of the building, next to the three police cars and the forensics van, before slowly weaving their way through the crowd.

As they reached the crime-scene tape and Hunter quickly chatted to the two officers guarding the entrance to the lot, a tall, lean and spare man dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and dark blue jeans caught Garcia’s eyes. He was standing at the back of the crowd, hands tucked deep into his pockets. But contrary to everyone else’s tense and apprehensive body language, his was calm and relaxed. He looked up and his eyes met Garcia’s for a brief moment, before darting away.

‘Detective Sanchez is over there,’ the older of the officers said, indicating a short and round man, who was chatting to one of the forensics agents. The man was about five foot six, and had his hands clasped behind his back like an undertaker overseeing a funeral. There was something funereal about the way the man looked as well – a black suit with an inch of crisp white cuff protruding from each sleeve, polished black shoes and a black tie. He had dark brown hair, which had been combed back and plastered with hair gel, Dracula-style. His bushy mustache curved around his top lip like a horseshoe.

‘Detective Hunter?’ Sanchez said, as he noticed the two new arrivals.

Hunter shook hands and introduced Garcia.

‘This is Thomas Webb,’ Sanchez said, nodding at the forensics agent he’d been chatting to. Webb was a few inches taller than Sanchez, and several pounds lighter. The forensics team were already packing up, ready to leave.

Sanchez didn’t look like a man who would waste time, shooting the breeze. Introductions over, he readily reached into his inside pocket for his notebook. ‘OK, let me tell you what we’ve got,’ he addressed Hunter and Garcia. ‘At 8:52 a.m. dispatch received a call from a Mr. Andrews.’ He indicated the red Ford Fusion. ‘The owner of that car. He’s an accountant, and he has an office on the second floor of this building. The place is almost completely empty, as you can probably deduce from the number of real estate signs up front. An insurance company used to occupy the entire first floor, but they went under six months ago. The only other business in the building is a sole trader’s quantity surveying firm, also on the second floor. We haven’t established contact with him yet.’

Sanchez paused, maybe waiting for some sort of comment from Hunter or Garcia. He got none. ‘Anyway, a black and white was dispatched to this address. When they got here, they found the body of a white female on the ground over there, right by those crates.’ He indicated the location. ‘She could’ve been anywhere between early twenties and late thirties. No one could tell.’

‘The body was taken to the state coroners about an hour ago,’ the forensics agent offered, checking his watch. ‘Unfortunately, as far as studying the scene with the body in situgoes, you’ll have to do with pictures.’ He looked around himself for an instant. ‘But this isn’t a crime scene. It’s a disposal area. If this really is a homicide case, she sure as hell wasn’t murdered here.’

Sanchez observed Hunter and Garcia for a moment before moving on. ‘Anyway, Mr. Andrews parked his car in his usual space, and as he got out he noticed the body on the ground. From where he was, his first thought was that it was probably some homeless soul, but according to him he never saw a homeless person sleeping out here before. He moved a little closer to check, and that’s when he freaked out. He called for help straightaway. He swears he didn’t touch a thing.’

‘Where is he?’ Hunter asked.

‘Up in his office. There’s an officer with him. You can interview him again if you like.’

‘The entire body was severely deformed by hundreds of different-sized lumps,’ the forensics agent explained. ‘They were inflammations and swellings, probably caused by wasp stings, more specifically tarantula hawks.’

Hunter and Garcia said nothing.

‘We recovered three wasps from inside her mouth,’ the agent continued, producing a small, tubular, plastic container with three dead tarantula hawks inside. ‘One was lodged in her throat.’

‘Was she dressed?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not completely. Underwear only. Purple in color, lacy in type.’

‘Any belongings found?’

‘Nothing. We’ve already checked the dumpster. It’s empty. As Detective Sanchez said, the building is virtually unoccupied.’

‘If you were able to identify lumps all over her body,’ Hunter said, ‘I’m assuming the body wasn’t bloated.’

Hunter knew that in the early stages after death, especially the first three days, if the body is kept in relatively normal environment conditions, cellular metabolism slows as the internal systems begin to break down. Lack of oxygen in the tissues triggers an explosive growth of bacteria, which feed on the body’s proteins, carbohydrates and fats, producing gases that cause the body to smell. That chemical reaction also causes the body to start to bloat and swell considerably, while secreting fluids from the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and lower body cavities. It had been exactly three days since they watched that woman die inside that glass coffin.

The forensics agent shook his head. ‘No. No bloating of the body, whatsoever. Actually the body was just entering rigor mortis. My guess is that she died sometime yesterday or overnight.’

Garcia looked at Hunter, but his gaze gave nothing away.

‘You’ll have to wait for the autopsy results for a more accurate time frame,’ the agent concluded.

‘Was the body sent to the coroners in North Mission Road?’ Hunter asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘Now, the reallyfucked-up thing is,’ Sanchez said, retrieving a clear plastic evidence bag from his pocket, ‘together with the wasps, they found this stuffed in her mouth.’ He handed the envelope to Hunter. Inside it was a yellow, square sticky note. Written in black ink, from what looked to have been a felt-tip pen, were the words Enjoy, Detective Hunter. I know I did.

Forty-Two

Hunter and Garcia read the note, and without saying a word returned it to the forensics agent. He would take it back to the lab for analysis.

‘I’m assuming that this case will now be transferred to the Homicide Special Section?’ the agent asked, as his stare flip-flopped between Hunter, Garcia and Sanchez.

Before Hunter or Garcia could answer, Sanchez lifted both of his hands, palms forward. ‘It’s all yours. Whoever did this asked for you by name, so, please, be my guest.’

‘As soon as we have any results from anything,’ the agent said, addressing Hunter and Garcia, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’ He turned and rejoined the rest of his team.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Sanchez asked, once Webb was out of earshot. ‘I’ve been observing the two of you since you got here. Checking your reactions while Webb revealed everything his team found so far, while he showed you the wasps they retrieved from inside the woman’s mouth, while you read that note and all . . . Nothing. No anger. No surprise. No disgust. Not even a wince. Fair enough, you didn’t get to see the state of that poor woman’s body up close, but even if you had I don’t think it would’ve surprised you.’ He was still studying both detectives’ faces. ‘I know you’re Homicide Special, and you’re supposed to have seen some pretty messed-up crap, but in my view, no matter how much experience you have, or how well trained you are, in a case like this something’s gotta give.’

Neither Hunter nor Garcia replied.

‘Don’t fucking tell me that you’ve seen something like this before. It looks like that woman was killed by hundreds of big-ass wasps. The biggest I’ve ever seen. That’s already nuts in itself. But from that note, one can only conclude she was murdered. I might not be Homicide Special, but I’ve been to plenty of crime scenes, and I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies. Twenty-two years’ worth of it. God knows I’ve seen some shit that would make anyone puke. But I’ll tell you now, I’ve never seen shit like this. When forensics pulled the first wasp from that woman’s mouth, my blood sugar hit the floor. I’m allergic to those things. When they pulled out that note, my balls shrunk.’ He paused and used the palm of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and the nape of his neck. ‘What kind of psycho kills someone using wasps?’

Still silence from Hunter and Garcia.

‘But even after being told that hundreds of wasp stings deformed her entire body . . . even as you read that note, neither of you showed the slightest of reactions. So, you both are either the coldest motherfuckers I’ve ever met, or you were expecting this. So let me ask you again. What the hell is going on? Has this happened before?’

A tense moment passed.

‘Not exactly like this,’ Hunter finally replied. ‘But yes, it has happened before, and, yes, we were expecting it.’

Sanchez was clearly debating something in his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more details. The circumstances dictated that the case wouldn’t end up on his desk anymore, and truthfully he was glad. He ran his thumb and index finger over his mustache while staring back at the location where the body was found.

‘Do you know what?’ he said. ‘I can’t wait for retirement. I can’t wait to get the hell away from this city. Last week we arrested a father, who threw his own baby daughter out the window of his tenth-floor apartment just because she was crying too much. When, just seconds later, his girlfriend realized what had happened and started freaking out, he threw her as well. When we kicked his door down, he was sitting in his living room, watching a baseball game and eating cornflakes. The daughter died. The girlfriend is a vegetable in a hospital bed. Her brain is gone. She has no insurance, so they’re already talking about turning off the machines. The guy couldn’t give a damn either way.’

Sanchez straightened his white cuffs under his suit jacket, and then his tie. ‘This city has no conscience. It has no mercy. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end you find out that whoever did this did it just for the fun of it.’

Forty-Three

California oaks shaded the road as Hunter turned into Loma Vista Drive from West 8th Street in Long Beach. The house they were looking for was almost at the end of the drive. Sat back from the street, it had a pale yellow front that contrasted nicely against the white door and window frames. A low wrought-iron fence surrounded the house. Behind it, a neatly mowed front lawn. The narrow driveway on the left led to the one-car garage at the back of the house. The driveway gates were open. A metallic-blue Toyota Matrix was parked just outside the garage. The license plate number matched the one they had for Christina Stevenson’s car.

According to the research team, Christina had left the LA Timesheadquarters on Thursday evening. She had taken Friday and Saturday off, but they were expecting to see her back on Sunday. She never turned up, but that wasn’t surprising. Reporters had a tendency of disappearing for days, depending on the story they were working on.

Hunter parked on the street, directly in front of the house. On a Monday afternoon the road was quiet. No kids playing. No one tending to their gardens or lawns. No one sitting out on their porches, enjoying the day.

They entered the property grounds via the driveway gates. Hunter knocked, and then tried the front door – locked. Both front windows were also locked, with their curtains drawn shut.

Garcia had carried on down the driveway in the direction of the blue Toyota. He gloved up and checked the car doors first, before moving onto the garage – all locked.

‘Everything up front is locked,’ Hunter said, joining Garcia. ‘Curtains are all shut.’

‘Same on this side of the house,’ Garcia replied. ‘Car and garage are locked too. But she obviously came back home on Thursday evening after she left the paper.’

They both made their way around toward the back of the house. The fence to the right of the garage wasn’t just for decoration like the one up front. This one was solid wood and about eight feet high, with a sturdy-looking door. Hunter tried the door handle. The door clicked open.

‘That’s not a good sign,’ Garcia said.

They walked through to the house’s ample patio, where a rectangular swimming pool was its main feature. Four sun loungers were arranged on one side of the pool. A small shelter at the north end of the patio housed a barbecue grill. The house was to their right, where the entire back façade was completely made of glass. There were two sliding doors leading back into the house. One led back into the living room, the other back into a bedroom. The one closer to them, leading back into the bedroom, was wide open. They started moving toward it, and at that exact moment a strong gust of wind blew east, in the direction of the house. The floral curtain behind the open door flew back just enough for them to catch a glimpse of the inside of the room. It was enough to make both detectives stop and look at each other.

‘I’ll call forensics,’ Garcia said, reaching for his phone.

Forty-Four

Christina Stevenson’s house was spacious, bigger than most in that part of town, but for the moment Mike Brindle and his forensics team were concentrating all their efforts in processing her bedroom.

The room was large and comfortable, overflowing with girly touches – from the pink dresser to the stuffed toys – but it looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. The toys, the bed pillows and several colorful cushions were scattered all over the floor. The bed covers had been partially pulled off, as if someone had grabbed at them with both hands while being forcefully dragged away from the bed. The bed itself was twisted out of position, and that had knocked the bedside table on its side. The bedside lamp had hit the floor and shattered into tens of tiny pieces. A bottle of Dom Ruinart 1998 champagne was tipped over, lying next to the bedside table. Most of the bubbly liquid had spilled out onto the floor. Some of it had seeped through the wooden floorboards; the rest had pretty much evaporated, leaving just a tiny pool by the bottle’s neck. A smashed champagne flute was lying just inches away from the bottle.

The pink dresser looked as if somebody had kicked it in a fit of rage. Perfume flasks and hair product bottles had been knocked over, and most of them were now on the floor, together with an MP3 speaker docking system, a hair dryer and various makeup items. The dresser mirror was cracked. Though they hadn’t found any blood anywhere yet, the entire room screamed one word at everyone – struggle.

But to a forensics team, a crime scene marked by a struggle was almost like hitting the jackpot. A struggle meant that the victim resisted, fought back in some way. Even if the assailant was prepared for it, with rivers of adrenaline rushing through the victim’s veins no one could predict how long or how intense that struggle would be. A struggle would always cause more evidence to be left behind – more clothes fibers lost, maybe a hair follicle, or an eyelash. A bump against the sharp corner of a bedside table or a dresser could cause a micro cut, invisible to the naked eye, but nevertheless leaving behind traces of blood and skin, and consequently DNA. Ironic as it might sound, forensically speaking a struggle was a great thing.

A forensics agent in white Tyvek hooded coveralls was dusting the glass door that Hunter and Garcia had found wide open. A second agent was slowly moving about the place, tagging and photographing every item in the room. Mike Brindle was working the bed and the area immediately around it.

Hunter and Garcia had also suited up in hooded coveralls, and were now checking the living room. The space was pleasantly decorated. The furniture was elegant and expensive-looking. A well-equipped open-plan kitchen was located at the south end of the room. To the right of the front door, three portraits were arranged next to a bowl of fake fruit on top of a stylish black sideboard.

The living room and the kitchen were in perfect order. Nothing seemed out of place. The struggle had happened only inside the bedroom.

They had found Christina Stevenson’s bag on the floor by the sideboard. Her wallet was in there, together with her driver’s license, her credit cards, her car keys and her cellphone, which had run out of battery.