The bedroom was enormous, probably bigger than Hunter’s entire one-bedroom flat. In the en-suite bathroom he found a large collection of make-up items and several bottles of face, hand and body creams. Her bed was perfectly made. On her dresser Hunter found another portrait of her parents, some necklaces and bracelets, and a collection of fragrances. The drawers were overflowing with lingerie and summer clothes.

Hunter returned his attention to Kelly’s parents’ portrait. She looked a lot more like her mother than her father. Hunter couldn’t help but think about the pain they were about to go through when the sheriff in Great Falls knocked on their door. It was the worst news any parent could ever receive. He’d been the bearer of such news more times than he cared to remember.

As he placed the frame back on the dresser, his flashlight beam reflected on the silver frame and his body tensed. The frame worked like a mirror, and he caught a glimpse of a dark figure standing right behind him.

Fifty-Four

Click.

Hunter heard the muffled sound of a semi-automatic pistol being cocked inches away from the back of his head. But before the person standing there had a chance to say or do anything, he spun on the balls of his feet and swung his arm around with purpose. The flashlight caught the intruder’s pistol-holding arm with a loud thud.

Gun and flashlight flew across the room, smashing against the wardrobe door and falling to the floor. The flashlight ended up under the bed, facing the wall, its deflected beam now just strong enough to keep the room from slipping into total darkness.

Hunter’s left hand was already at his shoulder holster. He’d managed to wrap his fingers around the handle of his gun when the intruder delivered a well-placed kick to his abdomen, catching Hunter right at the pit of his stomach. Air left him like a ripped balloon and he stumbled backwards, gasping for oxygen. Hunter knew another kick would quickly follow. This time it came in the form of a side sweep to the right side of his body, around the same height as the first one, but Hunter was ready for it. He blocked it with the outside of his forearm and unleashed a devastating blow with his left fist, catching the intruder square in the chest. Hunter used his momentum to step forward and sent in a follow-up punch to the face. It was blocked with martial-art precision. Hunter didn’t miss a step, another left punch to the side of the torso – blocked. Right punch to the chest – blocked. Left elbow to the face – blocked.

What the fuck? Hunter thought. Can this guy see in the dark or what?

A new, higher and more powerful jump kick came from the intruder. Hunter saw it late, but even so, his rapid reaction allowed him to swerve most of his head out of the way. The tip of the intruder’s boot grazed Hunter’s right eyebrow, nicking it. Hunter used his swerving motion to gain speed and pirouetted his body around three hundred and sixty degrees. The movement took only a split second, and at the end of it Hunter delivered a new punch with his left fist straight to the intruder’s ribcage. But some last-minute intuition told him to take some of the power off the strike. Even so, this time there was no blocking. The intruder doubled over and stumbled back. In a blink of an eye Hunter reversed his movement, spinning his body in the opposite direction. As he faced his attacker again, he was holding his gun with his right arm fully extended. The barrel of his weapon just inches away from his attacker’s face.

‘Move and you’ll be having dinner with Elvis.’

‘Fuck, that was a fast draw.’

Hunter frowned. It was a woman’s voice.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asked.

‘Me?’ Hunter cocked his gun. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I asked first.’

‘Well, I have a gun.’

‘Yeah? So did I.’

‘Well, guess what? I still have mine, and it’s pointing right at your face.’

A split-second pause.

‘OK, point taken.’ She lifted her hands but didn’t say a word.

‘I’ll ask again, in case you forgot – who the hell are you?’

‘My name is Whitney Myers.’ Her voice was calm.

Hunter waited but Myers offered nothing else. ‘And . . . ? Is your name supposed to mean anything to me . . . ?’

‘I’m a private missing persons investigator. If you allow me to move I can show you my credentials.’

‘Your hands are going nowhere for now, buttercup.’

He looked at her suspiciously. Even through the weak light coming from under the bed, Hunter could tell Myers was wearing dark trousers and shirt, flat-soled shoes, a small pouch belt around her waist and a black skullcap.

‘You dress more like a burglar than a PI.’

‘Well, you don’t dress like a cop either,’ she stabbed back.

‘How do you know I’m a cop?’

She tilted her head in the direction of the wardrobe. ‘Standard issue LAPD flashlight.’ A short pause. ‘Unlike your gun. Nothing standard about that. HK USP tactical pistol. A Navy Seals favorite. You’re obviously part of some special section, or a pretty big gun fanatic. I’m guessing both.’

Hunter’s gun was still aimed dead at her eyes. ‘If you knew I was a cop, why the hell did you attack me like that?’

‘You never gave me a chance to say a word. I was about to politely ask you to turn around slowly when suddenly you turned into Captain America on crack. I was just defending myself.’

Hunter considered it. ‘If you’re a PI, who hired you?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that. It’s privileged information.’

Hunter’s gaze moved to his gun and then back to Myers. ‘Under the circumstances, I don’t think you’ve got much of a choice.’

‘You and I both know you’re not gonna shoot me.’

Hunter chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you. All I need is a reason.’

Myers didn’t reply.

‘Plus I can arrest you for breaking and entering. You know how it goes. You’ll have to drag a lawyer down to the station, then you’ll be properly interrogated . . . yada, yada, yada . . . and we’ll find out anyway. So you’d better tell me something, or this is about to become a very long night for you.’ Hunter could feel thin lines of blood running down the right side of his face from the cut just above his eyebrow. He stood perfectly still.

Myers fixed Hunter down with a solid stare. She could see the resolve in his eyes. He wasn’t about to let her go easy. But Myers also wasn’t about to tell Hunter the truth about Katia and Leonid Kudrov. She wasn’t prepared to tell him her secrets, or that – out of habit and as a way of keeping her updated with who her potential clients could be – Myers was sent a daily list of names, including photographs, of new additions to the Missing Persons Unit database. The list was compiled and filtered by her LAPD informer, Carl O’Connor.

O’Connor wasn’t a detective with the MPU. Pure and simple, he was a computer geek, an old friend, and the database administrator for the Valley Bureau of the LAPD. His unlimited access to essential information where missing persons were concerned had given Myers the advantage she needed in many cases. When she received Kelly Jensen’s photograph, Myers immediately saw the resemblance to Katia Kudrov, and that was why she was at Kelly Jensen’s apartment in that specific moment. She was looking for clues.

There was no way she was telling Hunter all that. But Myers knew she had to tell him something. She improvised as fast as she could.

‘OK. The person I’m working for is an ex-boyfriend,’ she lied with the steadiest of faces.