‘Let’s bag all the bed covers and sheets,’ Goldstein said. ‘The lab will have to deal with this.’

Reyna quickly pulled everything off the bed and placed each item into individual evidence bags. The white mattress under the sheets showed no visible signs of any blood splatter, but they ran a UV test on it anyway. Once again, several speckles lit up here and there, but nothing that could get any alarm bells ringing. Nevertheless, Reyna and Goldstein marked and collected samples of them all.

When they were all done, Goldstein crossed over to where the small bookcase was, and carefully began retrieving each and every book. Reyna stayed by the bed, dusting its frame for fingerprints. As he moved over to the other side, he noticed something different on the side of the mattress – a long, horizontal makeshift flap, made from a thick white fabric that blended easily with the mattress, hiding it extremely well. He frowned at it and slowly ripped it from the mattress. Concealed underneath the flap, he found a long slit in the mattress.

‘Eric, come have a look at this,’ he called with a hand gesture.

Goldstein put down the book he was looking through, and walked back over to where Reyna was.

‘What do you think this is?’ Reyna asked, pointing to the long opening in the mattress.

Goldstein’s eyes widened a touch. ‘A hiding place.’

‘You bet,’ Reyna replied, slipping his fingers into the slot, and horizontally, pulling both sides apart, as wide as he could.

Goldstein bent down and shone his flashlight into the aperture. Neither of them could see anything past Reyna’s hands.

‘I’ll check,’ Goldstein said, putting his flashlight down, and slowly slipping his right hand into the gap. Very carefully he started touch-feeling his way around the inside of the mattress. First left, then right – nothing. He slid his arm in a little deeper, all the way up to his elbow. Left, right. Still nothing.

‘Maybe whatever was hidden here is already gone,’ Reyna offered.

Goldstein wasn’t about to give up just yet. He bent forward and shoved his whole arm into the mattress – all the way up to his shoulder. This time he didn’t have to feel around. His fingers immediately collided with something solid.

Goldstein paused and looked at Reyna in a particular way.

‘You’ve got something?’ Reyna asked, instinctively bending his head to one side to look into the gap again. He saw nothing.

‘Give me a sec,’ Goldstein said, spreading his fingers to grab whatever object was hidden inside the mattress. Whatever it was, it was about five inches thick.

‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it.’ He tried to pull it out, but the object slipped from his grip. ‘Hold on, hold on,’ he said again, now sliding his other arm into the mattress. With his arms shoulder-length apart, he grabbed hold of the object with both hands. ‘It feels like some sort of box,’ he announced, and slowly started dragging it out.

Reyna waited.

‘OK, here we go,’ Goldstein said as he got the object to the opening.

Reyna moved his hands out of the way, and felt an odd excitement run up and down his spine.

Goldstein dragged the whole object out of the mattress and placed it on the floor between them. It was a box. A wooden box of about twenty-nine inches long by twenty-one wide.

‘Gun box,’ Reyna said, but without much conviction. Goldstein’s thick eyebrows arched up inquisitively. The box was actually large enough to hold a submachine gun like an MP5 or an Uzi, or even two or three handguns.

‘Only one way to find out,’ Goldstein said.

Surprisingly the box had no locks, just two old-style flip latches. Goldstein undid them both, and flipped the lid open.

There were no guns inside, but still its contents made both agents pause, their eyes opening wide.

The box had a division down the center of it, splitting it into two separate compartments.

After several seconds of complete silence and absolute stillness, Goldstein finally used a pen to cautiously rifle through the contents inside both compartments.

‘Holy shit,’ he whispered before looking over at Reyna. ‘You better go get Hawk.’

Twenty-Eight

At 01:30 a.m., Hunter and Agent Taylor were called into a special NCAVC meeting, which was held inside a sound-proof conference room on the third floor of the BSU building. Four men and three women sat around a long, polished red oak table. A large, white projection screen had been lowered from the ceiling toward the far wall. As soon as Hunter was ushered into the room, he could sense the heavy, worried atmosphere, which was further emphasized by the tense look on everyone’s faces. Director Adrian Kennedy was sitting at the head of the table.

‘Please come in and have a seat,’ he said without standing up, indicating the two empty seats by his side, one to his right, one to his left.

Hunter took the seat to Kennedy’s right.

‘OK, let’s start with introductions,’ Kennedy continued. ‘I know everyone here is familiar with Detective Robert Hunter’s paper,’ he said to the group, ‘but I believe this is the first time most of you have met the man behind that work.’ He glanced at Hunter then in turn nodded at each person around the table. ‘Jennifer Holden oversees our PROFILER computer system; Deon Douglas and Leo Hurst are with our Criminal Investigative Analysis Program – CIAP; Victoria Davenport is with the FBI’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program – VICAP; Doctor Patrick Lambert, who you met earlier, is our chief of forensic psychiatry, and Doctor Adriana Montoya is one of our chief pathologists.’

They all nodded a silent ‘Hello’ at Hunter, who returned each and every one a nod of his own.

‘To my left, is FBI Special Agent Courtney Taylor,’ Kennedy said. ‘She’ll be heading this investigation.’

More silent nods.

‘I already took the liberty of contacting your captain with the LAPD once again, Robert,’ he said to Hunter. ‘We now need you in this case, and I know you want in, but we’ve got to do this by the book. A request has already been expedited and sanctioned by both sides.’ He drew quotations in the air with his fingers. ‘You’re now officially “on loan” to the FBI.’ He placed an FBI ID card with Hunter’s name and photograph on the table in front of him. ‘So, until we’ve got this all figured out, you are Special Agent Robert Hunter.’

Hunter seemed to cringe at the title. He left the ID card where it was.

‘OK,’ Kennedy said to the whole room. ‘Sorry to have dragged you all out here for such a late, unscheduled meeting, but there’s no doubt that today’s turn of events constitutes a major game changer.’ He sat back on his seat, locked his fingers together, and rested his hands on his lap before addressing Hunter and Taylor directly.

‘Doctor Lambert and I were in the observation room earlier today, during your second interview with Lucien Folter.’

Hunter didn’t look surprised. He knew that Taylor had called Kennedy from the house in Murphy right after their discovery. She had also used her smartphone to email him pictures of the framed human skin pieces, and a short video of Lucien’s basement room. Hunter had expected that Kennedy would’ve postponed whatever he had on for the rest of the day, and made the trip back from Washington, DC to Quantico, ASAP.

‘Everyone in this room has also watched the recorded footage of both interviews at length,’ Kennedy added before nodding at Doctor Lambert, who took over.

‘The transformation Mr Folter went through in the space of just a few hours, from interview one to interview two, was nothing less than astounding.’ He looked a little embarrassed. ‘I must admit that after the first interview, after the drug addiction story he told you, some part of me had started to believe him. I felt sorry for him.’