Hunter opened the text message and was immediately filled with a disquieting anxiety.

Well done, Detective Hunter, you finally managed to put all the clues together. Unfortunately for you, that has only led you to my house – my empty house. I hope you are having fun. Found anything interesting yet? I have.

As Hunter finished reading the message, his phone beeped again. Part two of the text message had arrived.

I took the liberty to track your phone’s location. I can see you’re still in my house, so here’s where this game gets really fun. You, and you ALONE, have 7 mins to make it to St Mary’s Church on the intersection of E. 4th St and S. Chicago St. That’s seven blocks away. Don’t drive – run. I’m sending you something to persuade you.

Another beep.

Another message.

This one started with an image.

An image that sent the room spinning around Hunter, making him feel as if all of a sudden all the oxygen had been sucked from his lungs.

He was looking at a photograph of a woman gagged and strapped onto a metal chair. The same woman he saw on the photograph they’d found down in the basement. The message read:

‘7 mins, or she dies. You tell anyone, including your partner, and I will kill her so slowly it will take her a month to die. The clock is ticking, Detective Hunter – 6:59, 6:58, 6:57 – LOL.

One Hundred and Ten

Hunter came charging down the stairs like a bullet train, clearing the hall, the living room, and exiting the house in three seconds flat.

The two police officers who were standing by the house’s front porch were taken by complete surprise. It took them about 1.5 seconds to get over the initial shock and react, instinctively reaching for their guns before quickly turning on the balls of their feet and anxiously aiming at the open door and the empty living room beyond it.

‘Wha . . . What’s going on?’ one of them called out in a nervous voice.

‘Fuck if I know,’ the second officer replied, resisting the urge to check the street behind him to see where Hunter had gone. If they were about to face any sort of threat, it was coming from inside the house, not from the street.

Five seconds passed and nothing.

Both officers began craning their necks to one side, in a quick jab motion, peeking into the house like chickens on drugs.

‘See anything?’ the first officer asked.

‘Not a damn thing.’

After another couple of seconds the first officer stepped up to the door and looked inside. The second officer assumed cover position.

‘There’s nothing here.’

‘What the hell?’ The second officer holstered his weapon and swung around looking for Hunter. He was nowhere to be seen. ‘What the fuck was that all about? That homicide detective just hauled ass down the street as if he were on fire.’

The first officer shrugged and holstered his weapon. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s gone, man, didn’t you see? He was going faster than Usain Bolt.’

‘Maybe he finally lost it. It’s a common thing with Homicide Special detectives. You already need to be nuts to join that group.’

Hunter had used a back alleyway to cut through to South Chicago Street. As he reached the main road, he turned left and ran as fast as he could. A million questions were tumbling over inside his head, but he just didn’t have the time to think about any of them.

He was about three city blocks from St Mary’s Church, when he peeked at his watch. He had less than three minutes to make it.

As he reached the next intersection along – East 6th Street – Hunter paid no attention to the traffic or the red pedestrian crossing light.

A white van, driving east on that road, saw him way too late as he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, stepping directly in front of the van. The driver slammed on the brakes hard, killing the van’s speed almost immediately, but not fast enough. Hunter collided with the front of the van and was thrown sideways to the ground, smashing his left arm and shoulder against the asphalt.

‘What the fuck?’ the van driver yelled, wide-eyed, jumping out of his vehicle. ‘Are you trying to fucking kill yourself, crazy man?’

Hunter rolled over twice and quickly scrambled on his hands and toes, trying to get back up. His legs finally found the traction he needed, and just like that he was back on his feet.

‘Didn’t you see the red light, you crazy fuc—’ the driver began, but as Hunter moved he saw Hunter’s gun tucked away in his shoulder holster. ‘Yo, it’s all cool, dawg,’ the driver said in a much less aggressive tone, taking a step back and showing Hunter his palms. ‘My bad all the way. I should’ve been paying more attention. You good?’

Hunter didn’t even look at him. He cut through the small, intrigued crowd that had already gathered on the sidewalk and moved on.

Hunter had handled the fall pretty well, but the collision with the van had hurt his right knee. He could feel it stabbing at him with every new step, forcing him to reduce his speed and limp awkwardly. But he wasn’t far now. He could see the bell tower of St. Mary’s Church just at the top of the road.

Out of breath and with his knee starting to scream at him, Hunter made it to the intersection in 6 minutes 53 seconds. There was no one there.

‘What the hell?’ he puffed the words out, while reaching for his phone.

No new messages, no new calls.

Out of the blue, a yellow cab pulled up right in front of him and rolled down its window.

‘You Robert Hunter?’ the driver asked.

Hunter nodded with a quizzical look on his face.

‘Here’s your phone, dude,’ the driver said, offering Hunter an old, brick-like cellphone with a hands-free earpiece already plugged into it.

‘What?’

The driver shrugged. ‘Look, man, a guy paid me two hundred bucks to bring this phone to this exact location, at this exact time, and give it to some dude called Robert Hunter. That’s you, right? So here’s your phone.’

The phone the driver had offered Hunter started ringing, startling the driver.

‘Shit, man.’ The driver jumped in his seat before extending his arm again. ‘It ain’t gonna be for me.’

Hunter quickly took the phone and answered it, placing the earpiece in his ear.

‘Great,’ the caller said. ‘You made it. Now hand your phone over to the cab driver.’ The caller’s voice sounded a little different from all the previous calls. Hunter knew that was because he wasn’t using any electronic device to disguise it anymore. There was no longer a need for it.

‘What?’ Hunter replied.

‘You heard me. Take this phone and hand your phone over to the cab driver. You won’t need it anymore. Do it now or she dies.’

Hunter knew exactly what Graham was doing – getting rid of Hunter’s police phone GPS, and any other tricks and warning signals Hunter might’ve had set up at the touch of a button.

He did as he was told.

The cab driver rolled his window back up and quickly drove away.

‘Now, you have exactly sixty minutes to get to the address I’m going to give you. Don’t use your car. Don’t use a police car. Don’t take a taxi. Improvise. If you don’t, the killing begins. If you don’t get here in sixty minutes, the killing begins. If you disconnect from this call during the next sixty minutes, the killing begins. Am I clear?’

‘Yes.’

The caller gave Hunter the address.

‘Go. The clock starts . . . now.’

One Hundred and Eleven