He couldn’t shake the faceless woman’s image from his mind. Every time he closed his eyes he could still see the carving on the back of her neck; he could still smell the pungent odor from that room. Could this be happening again? Could this be the same killer? And if yes, why has he started killing again? The questions kept coming and Hunter knew the answers wouldn’t follow at the same speed. He stirred the ice cube once around the glass with his index finger and brought it to his lips. The sour, peppery taste of the Talisker relaxed him.

Hunter was certain that this would be another sleepless night, but he needed to somehow rest. He turned on the lights in the bedroom and emptied his pockets onto the bedside table. Car keys, house keys, some pocket change and a small piece of paper that read Call me – Isabella. A smile played on his lips as he remembered the whole morning incident.

‘I can’t believe I suggested she was a hooker to her face,’ he thought and the smile turned to laughter. He liked her sense of humor and her wit. She had thrown his sarcasm straight back at him. She was certainly different from most of the dull women he met in bars. He checked his watch. The time was coming up to one in the morning – too late. Perhaps he’d call her some other time.

He walked to the kitchen and pinned Isabella’s note on a corkboard next to the fridge, before making his way back into the bedroom ready to fight insomnia.

From the parking lot, hiding in the shadows a dark figure avidly observed the flicker of lights coming from the third-floor apartment.

Eleven

Hunter managed to doze off a few times during the night, but that was the best he could do. By five-thirty in the morning he was up and feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. Gritty eyes, dry mouth and a nagging headache that would be with him throughout the rest of the day – all the signs of a sleep hangover. He poured himself a strong cup of coffee and considered adding a quick shot of whisky to it, but that would probably make him feel worse. By six-thirty he was dressed and ready to leave when his cell phone rang.

‘Detective Hunter speaking.’

‘Robert, it’s me, Carlos.’

‘Rookie, you gotta stop calling me so early in the goddamn morning. Do you ever sleep?’

‘Sometimes, but last night it was hard to.’

‘You can say that again. So what’s up?’

‘I just talked to Doctor Winston.’

Hunter quickly glanced at his watch. ‘This early? Did you wake him up as well?’

‘No, he’s been up most of the night. Anyway, he said his team of forensic examiners didn’t come up with anything from the wooden house either.’

Hunter ran his hand over his chin. ‘Yeah, I was half expecting that,’ he said disappointedly.

‘He also said that there’s something he wants to show us, something important.’

‘There always is. Is he in the Coroner’s office now?’

‘Yep.’

‘OK, I’ll meet you there… half an hour?’

‘Yeah, that’s enough time, see you there.’

The Los Angeles County Department of Coroner is located on Mission Road. As one of the busiest Coroners in the entire United States, it can receive anywhere up to one hundred bodies a day.

Hunter parked next to the main building and met Garcia by the entrance door. He’d seen his fair share of dead bodies after ten years as a detective, but Hunter still felt uneasy walking down the corridors in the Department of Coroner. The smell was like a hospital, but it had a different sting to it, something that burnt the inside of his nostrils and irritated the back of his throat.

Yesterday’s victim’s autopsy had been conducted in a small separate room in the basement of the building. Doctor Winston had been the medical examiner during the Crucifix Killer case; if anyone could identify the same modus operandi, he could.

‘Why are we going downstairs – aren’t all the autopsy rooms on the first floor?’ Garcia asked intrigued, as they reached the bottom of the stairs that led to an empty and creepy basement corridor.

‘This is the same autopsy room that was used during the Crucifix Killer’s investigation. As the captain said, he wants this whole thing kept under wraps. Those goddamn reporters pay informers everywhere and this place is no different. Until we make sure the nightmare hasn’t started again the captain has asked the good old doctor to use the same precautions as the original case – and that includes no access to the victim’s body by anyone except the doctor himself and us.’

As they reached the room at the end of the narrow, well-lit corridor, Hunter pressed the intercom button on the wall and smiled a silly smile at the camera mounted just above the door. Seconds later Doctor Winston’s voice cracked through the small wall speaker.

‘Robert… let me buzz you in.’

A loud buzz echoed through the basement corridor followed by a clicking sound. Hunter pushed the heavy metal door open and stepped inside the room with Garcia.

A gleaming stainless-steel table with a sink at one of its ends was positioned close to the far wall. A large surgical light above the table illuminated the entire room. A tray which was used for placing organs as the examiner removed them from the victim’s body sat close to the sink. The drainage tube from the organ tray was stained orange-brown. The stinging smell was stronger inside the room. Two large surgical saws and several blades of different shapes and sizes were neatly arranged over a small table up against the west wall. The faceless woman’s body lay on the steel table.

‘Come in,’ Doctor Winston said, showing them into the room.

Garcia’s gaze rested on the motionless corpse and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

‘So, what do you have for us?’ Hunter asked quietly as if scared of waking her up.

‘Unfortunately, not much,’ Doctor Winston replied as he slipped on a brand-new pair of latex gloves. ‘My team didn’t manage to lift a single fingerprint from the house and given what we might be facing again, I’m not surprised.’

‘Yes, Carlos told me,’ Hunter said, letting out a disillusioned sigh. ‘How about fibers or something that can give us some sort of start?’

‘Sorry, Robert, the house has given us zilch.’

‘How can that be?’ Garcia asked. ‘The killer has obviously spent hours torturing that woman in that house. How come he left nothing behind?’

‘You said it before, rookie,’ Hunter explained. ‘A secluded location. The killer had all the time in the world to torture her uninterrupted. After she died the killer had all the time in the world to go over the entire house and make sure nothing was left behind. Time is on his side.’

Doctor Winston nodded.

‘How about her?’ Hunter asked tilting his head towards the body. ‘What can you tell us about her, doc?’

‘Twenty-three to twenty-five years of age, very healthy. She took very good care of herself. Her body fat was around 14.5 percent, which is athlete low. You don’t need me to tell you about her muscle tone, which means she was probably a gym rat. No operations or implants either, she still had her tonsils and appendix and her breasts were her own. Her skin still feels very smooth even after rigor mortis and the lab analysis showed a high content of humectants, emollients and lubricants.’

‘What?’ Garcia asked frowning.

‘Moisturizer,’ Hunter replied, trying to end Garcia’s confusion.

‘So she moisturized, most women do.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ Doctor Winston replied in a mocking voice. ‘Trisha spends a fortune on creams that have absolutely no effect; it’s all a big con if you ask me, but the thing about our victim is that the tests have shown a very high-quality grade of it, in other words, she used the very expensive stuff… just like Trisha. My confident guess is that she was well off.’

‘Why? Because she used expensive moisturizers?’ Garcia asked.