‘Now that’s a much better argument than the firing blanks one, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, clapping his hands three times. ‘But as you’ve just pointed out, there’s no way you can know for sure. So when you find out that there really is a Madeleine Reed, who was reported missing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after April 9, can you really afford to call my bluff?’ He gave her a couple of seconds to think about it before adding, ‘Because if you do and I’m not bluffing, the amount of shit that will rain on you and on the FBI will last a lifetime.’
Hunter was barely listening. Lucien’s words were still bouncing around in his head – ‘because for the past two days, my friend, you’ve been sitting before the man you’ve been seeking for twenty years. I was the one who took Jessica from you.’
Every atom in his body wanted to believe that Lucien was just bluffing, but Hunter had seen something in Lucien’s eyes – a disquieting defiance that he knew usually only came with certainty.
‘I can see your eyes wild, Robert,’ Lucien said, taking his attention away from Taylor. ‘You’re trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or not. Maybe I can help you with that.’ He ran his tongue over his top lip. ‘Yellow-fronted house, number 5067 on the corner of Lemon Grove Avenue and North Oxford, in East Hollywood.’
Hunter felt his throat constrict. That had been Jessica’s address. But if Lucien had read the police reports, that information would’ve been very easy to obtain.
Lucien read his mind.
‘I know, I know,’ he conceded. ‘That proves nothing. An address is easy to acquire. But how about this. Out of the photographs you mentioned Jessica had scattered around the house, the largest of them all was in a silver frame on a small table by the dark brown leather sofa in the living room. The picture was of the two of you at some sort of LAPD dinner party or award ceremony. You were in uniform and proudly displaying an award. She was wearing a purple dress with a matching purse. Her hair was loose, but thrown to one side, over her left shoulder.’
Still with his gaze firmly set on Hunter, Lucien paused, giving his old friend’s brain a chance to try to match his words to the images locked away in Hunter’s memory.
And then he delivered a final blow.
‘But you know the real difference between that and all the other photographs that were vandalized in the house, don’t you, Robert? That was the only one on which the word “PIG” was written vertically, instead of horizontally.’
Seventy-Seven
Hunter felt his heart stall, his blood freeze in his veins, and the pit in his stomach turn into a black hole that threatened to swallow his soul into oblivion. He wanted to speak, but his voice seemed to have gotten stuck in his throat.
His eyes were focused on Lucien, but not his mind. All of his thoughts had traveled back to the night that part of him had died with Jessica. He didn’t need to search long. Every detail of what he’d seen that night had been locked away somewhere in his brain. Accessing those memories was painful, but simple. He could practically see the photograph Lucien was talking about, right in front of him – the smashed glass, the silver frame, and the word ‘PIG’ written in large blood letters – vertically. As Lucien had said, that had been the only photograph on which a word had been written that way.
Trying his best to think logically, Hunter somehow managed to restrain his anger before it boiled out of his body.
If Lucien had somehow managed to get his hands on the crime-scene police reports from Jessica’s murder, then there was also a possibility that he’d managed to obtain copies of the crime-scene evidence report and inventory, which Hunter knew were very detailed.
Hunter breathed out.
Lucien picked up on his doubt.
‘Still not convinced, huh? Isn’t the brain’s defense mechanism intriguing, Robert? To try to avoid the intense psychological pain that it can see coming, it will, sometimes, even subconsciously, try everything to find an alternative answer. It will even disregard facts and try to hang on to things it knows not to be true. But I can’t blame you, Robert. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to believe it either. But the reality is – it’s true.’
Taylor could feel on her skin how volatile the air had become down in that basement corridor.
‘You’re bluffing again,’ she tried one more time, her voice angry and a few decibels louder than before. ‘Robert said that there were two perpetrators. Forensics found two sets of fingerprints at the scene. Are you going to tell us that you had a partner this once? And . . .’ she stressed before Lucien could respond, ‘we now have your fingerprints on file. One of the first things the FBI’s computer system does is to check the fingerprint of any apprehended individuals for a match against the records in IAFIS, which are linked to any unsolved crimes. If your fingerprints had matched any of the ones found inside Jessica’s home, or at the crime scene of any other unsolved crime, we would’ve had red alerts screaming at us from all four corners days ago.’
IAFIS is the Integrated Automated Fingerprints Identification System. After collecting a DNA sample, the FBI computer system also does the same check against the National DNA database.
Lucien waited patiently for Taylor to finish.
‘As I have brought to your attention before, Agent Taylor, you can be quite naive sometimes. Do you think that staging a crime scene is hard? Do you think that making a murder look like a by-product of a robbery is difficult? Do you think that acquiring and planting someone else’s fingerprints inside Jessica’s house would’ve posed a problem to someone like me?’ He laughed. ‘I can give you the names of the two men those fingerprints belonged to. Not that you’ll be able to verify it anyway, but I can also give you the location where you’ll find their remains. I wanted it to look like a robbery by gang members. I wanted the police to look for two suspects, instead of one. Why do you think the FBI had no clue I existed, Agent Taylor? Why do you think that after so many murders, your Behavioral Science Unit was never able to link any of them? Why do you think you haven’t been searching for a murderer who’s been killing people for twenty-five years?’
Defeat and anger began to draw lines across Taylor’s face.
‘It’s called deception, Agent Taylor. Making the police believe one thing, while the truth is something very different. It’s an art, and I’m very good at it.’
Lucien reverted his attention back to Hunter.
‘Maybe this will clear all the doubts from your mind once and for all, Robert. You said that all the jewelry Jessica had in the house was taken, but did you tell the detectives exactly what was taken?’
Hunter felt an awkward sensation crawling like a rash across his skin.
‘Of course not,’ Lucien said. ‘I doubt you knew every piece of jewelry she owned. But I can tell you exactly what was taken. She kept everything inside this cute little flowery box on the dresser in her room. Next to another picture of the two of you. A picture that wasn’t touched, wasn’t vandalized. The two of you at the beach.’ He paused, and in Hunter’s face saw the punch hit its target. But he wasn’t done yet. ‘I took the whole box. But from her body, other than the engagement ring you’ve already said was taken, I also took her two single diamond earrings, and her dainty necklace. The pendant on it was a white gold humming bird. Its eye was a tiny ruby.’
No amount of self-discipline would’ve been able to keep Hunter’s anger locked inside this time. He exploded forward and slammed both of his fists against the Plexiglas several times.