The room was starting to feel stuffy. Captain Blake walked over to the only window in the room and pushed it open.

‘So far, that’s the only paper carrying the story,’ she said irritably. ‘But our press office already received a battery of calls – from local, to nationwide and international newspapers. The avalanche of crap is just about to start.’

Hunter and Garcia knew she was referring to all the jackasses that would no doubt start calling in or sending in anonymous letters with all sorts of bogus tips and information, most of which would have to be checked out because it was protocol. Adding to that, there were always the obligatory phone calls from psychics and tarot card readers with visions, or messages received from beyond the grave that could help break the case. They were all used to it. It happened every time the news of a new high-profile killer broke.

‘The mayor was on the phone this morning,’ Captain Blake added. ‘He called me at my home. As soon as I put the phone down, I got a call from the governor of California. Everybody wants to know what the hell is going on, and my home phone seemed to have become this case’s information hot line.’ She grabbed the paper back from Garcia’s desk and hastily threw it into the wastebasket, knocking it over and spilling its contents.

‘What did you tell them?’ Hunter asked, calmly returning the wastebasket to its place.

Captain Blake looked back at Hunter. Her makeup was as impeccable as always, but she was wearing a darker shade of eye shadow than she usually did, and that made the angry look in her eyes appear deadly. Still, Hunter didn’t shy away from it.

‘Enough to assure them we’re doing everything we can,’ she replied. ‘But I gave them nothing they didn’t need to know. No one knows the killer contacted you first, and that we were already investigating this case way before it hit the papers. No one knows that this killer has already claimed at least one victim prior to Christina Stevenson. I want to keep all that under wraps. As far as everyone is concerned, we’re starting our investigation into these online murders today.’

‘Suits us fine,’ Hunter said.

‘I refused the request for a press conference this early in the investigation,’ the captain continued, still annoyed. ‘But we won’t be able to escape it, as you both well know it. There will eventually be a press conference. And guess what?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘The two of you are the ones who will be facing that execution squad.’

There were few things in life Hunter hated more than press conferences. He breathed out and pinched the bridge of his nose. His headache was still eating away at his brain, despite the grueling workout.

‘Did you read the Sunday edition of the LA Times?’ Captain Blake asked. ‘Did you read Christina Stevenson’s story?’

Both detectives nodded.

‘Well, she burst that “celebrity” affair wide open,’ the captain said. ‘I don’t care for tabloids or gossip publications, but since yesterday I’ve had to become intimately acquainted with them. They are all saying that the cheated husband will probably file for divorce.’ She paused, but there was no reaction from Hunter or Garcia. She moved on. ‘Whatever happens, that relationship is now severely dented. The wife’s actions will also probably put an end to her not-very-successful acting career. Though I won’t be surprised if she gets a book deal out of this. My point is, we’ve all seen and worked on cases where people were murdered for a lot less than something like that. Are you looking into this celebrity couple as suspects?’

‘We did a preliminary check,’ Garcia said. ‘The husband had been filming in Sacramento since the beginning of the week. He obviously had no idea about the affair, or that the story was coming out. He returned to Los Angeles on Sunday evening. The wife and her lover both have solid alibis for Friday night, the night Christina Stevenson died. And no, they aren’t each other’s alibis, Captain. We’re looking into other aspects of this, but the big head-scratcher is – how do we link Kevin Lee Parker, our first victim, to Christina’s celebrity affair story? We know for sure that the same person is behind both murders.’

‘Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?’ Captain Blake retorted. ‘Finding a connection, if there is any.’

‘And as I said, we’re looking into it,’ Garcia replied firmly. ‘The possibility that Ms. Stevenson was murdered because she was a reporter is very real, and we know that. We have a team working on collecting every article she wrote for the Times in the past two years.’

‘Get them to work faster,’ the captain said, turning to face the pictures board on the south wall. She immediately noticed two new sets of photographs. The first one had been taken at the car park in Dewey Street, Santa Monica, where Christina Stevenson’s body had been found yesterday morning. When her stare found the pictures of the body itself, the captain held her breath for an instant.

With the wasps gone, the deformation caused by their stings was absolutely shocking. Christina’s body was an unrecognizable mass. The tarantula hawks had shown no mercy. Even her eyes and tongue had been stung several times.

‘Jesus!’ The word unintentionally escaped the captain’s lips. ‘Good thing the paper didn’t get hold of this picture.’

The second new set of photographs came from Christina’s bedroom.

Captain Blake scanned the pictures slowly, and Hunter and Garcia saw her body go rigid when she came to the last photo on the set.

‘What the hell is that?’

Fifty

After Hunter’s discovery inside Christina Stevenson’s bedroom, the forensics team used a fluorescent orange fingerprint powder on the glass wall to enhance what was found. Though fluorescent powders were usually used against multicolored surfaces, they were often used to dust large areas, due to how easy it was to photograph the results under a UV light.

‘The killer left us that,’ Hunter said.

‘What?’ Captain Blake stepped closer to have a better look.

‘He left that on the glass wall behind the curtains,’ Hunter clarified. ‘We think he hid there while waiting for his victim to come home.’

‘How did he do this?’

‘The same way kids do. He misted the glass with a warm breath, and then wrote on it.’

Forensics had used a handheld steamer to properly steam the desired section on the glass. The fluorescent orange powder attached itself to the water particles created by the steam that surrounded whatever the killer had drawn onto the glass, making the whole thing look like a large, fluorescent orange stencil.

At the center of it the killer had written three words: THE DEVIL INSIDE.

‘What the hell does this mean?’ the captain asked, spinning around to face her detectives. ‘Inside what . . . or who . . .? His head . . .? Her . . .? That glass coffin . . .?’

‘We don’t know what it means yet, Captain,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s why I got here early,’ Garcia joined in. ‘The only reference I could find was to a horror film released in January 2012. It’s called The Devil Inside.’

‘A horror film?’ Captain Blake’s left eyebrow arched in a peculiar way.

Garcia nodded, while reading out of his computer screen. ‘It’s a documentary-style horror film about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms, while trying to figure out what happened to her mother.’

A moment of stunned silence.

Up went the second eyebrow. ‘Did you just say exorcisms?’

Garcia breathed out, sharing the captain’s frustration. ‘That’s right. According to the movie blurb, her mother had murdered three people while possessed by a demon. The daughter wants to find out if that’s true or not.’