Myers handed Hunter a copy of all the recordings, including the deciphered last one, together with several files. Her research was as good as she had said it was.

Hunter kept his side of the bargain, but he told Myers only what she really needed to know. He told her about the stitches to the victims’ mouths, but not to their lower bodies. He never mentioned that the killer left any devices inside his victims. He also didn’t say anything about the bomb, the spray-painted messages. He said the killer had used a knife and simply left it at that.

Hunter finally finished his shrimp platter before leaving Uncle Kelome’s. His headache wasn’t gone, but it was now bearable. Hunter contacted Operations and asked them to get started straight away on a file on Katia Kudrov.

Back in his apartment, he sat in his living room, nursing a new glass of single malt. He didn’t even bother with the lights. Darkness suited him just fine. His brain kept going over everything Myers had told him. There was no concrete evidence that the same person who’d taken Laura Mitchell and Kelly Jensen had also abducted Katia Kudrov, but Hunter’s mind had already started finding links in the method of their disappearance.

Katia had been abducted from inside her own apartment. That was consistent with the way in which Laura Mitchell, the first victim, had been kidnapped. Despite his suspicions, Hunter had yet to find out from where Kelly Jensen had been taken.

The phone messages left on Katia Kudrov’s answering machine also bothered him. The fact that they were all twelve seconds long was evidence enough that they’d been left by the same person. One message a day, over sixty days. That again implied that they were dealing with someone patient and self-disciplined. A person who didn’t mind waiting. It was almost like a game he played with his victims. But why twelve seconds? It wouldn’t have been a random choice, he was sure.

Hunter played through the copy of the recordings Myers had given him. He heard the kidnapper’s hoarse whisper, first as a mass of static sound, then as the deciphered voice. He rewound it and played it again. Over and over.

Hunter sat back in his beaten-up black leather sofa and rested his head against the backrest. He needed to watch the CCTV footage from Kelly’s studio parking lot, but he was exhausted. His eyelids were starting to feel heavy. And when sleep came Hunter’s way, he always grabbed it with both hands.

He fell asleep right there in his living room. Five consecutive and dreamless hours, something that very rarely happened. When he woke up, he had a stiff neck, and the taste in his mouth was as if he had eaten from a garbage can, but he felt rested and his headache was mercifully gone. He had a long shower, allowing the warmth and strong jet of water to massage his neck muscles. He shaved with an old razorblade that seemed to rip the hairs from his face instead of cutting them. He cursed. He had to go the grocery store sometime soon.

After making himself a strong cup of black coffee, Hunter returned to his living room and to the laptop he’d brought home with him.

Mr. Wang’s hidden parking lot camera was set to record twenty-four hours a day, but Hunter had a feeling he’d only need to watch the night footage. This killer didn’t strike him as someone who’d risk hanging around an abduction scene in the middle of the day, in plain view of everyone. If Kelly Jensen had really been taken from her studio location, chances were, it would’ve been done at night.

Because the parking lot was secluded and mainly used by shop owners, the movement of cars and people was minimal. Anything out of the ordinary would stand out. There was no need for Hunter to watch every minute of the fifty-six hours of night footage he had. After a quick test, he found out that he could speed up playback to six times its original playing speed and still be able to spot anything suspicious. That meant it would take him just over an hour to go through a whole eight hours. Hunter checked his watch – 6:22 a.m. He had enough time to skim through the first recorded night before making his way to Parker Center.

He didn’t need to watch it for long.

The timestamp at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen read 8:36 p.m. when an old Ford Fiesta entered the parking lot and stopped directly behind Kelly’s Trans-Am. Hunter sat up and slowed the footage down to normal playing speed. A few seconds later someone stepped out of the car – male, tall, well built. He leaned against the driver’s door and nervously looked around the lot as if checking if anyone else was around. He looked uncomfortable as he lit up a cigarette. Hunter paused the picture and enhanced it by zooming in, but the quality he got from the laptop’s imaging application wasn’t great – too pixilated and grainy – so he couldn’t properly make the man’s face. He was sure the LAPD computer guys would be able to clean it up. Hunter pressed play again. Thirty seconds later, the passenger’s door opened and a leggy blonde stepped out. She moved around to where the nervous male was standing, kneeled down in front of him, undid his belt, pulled down his trousers and took him in her mouth.

Hunter smiled and rubbed his chin. Just a couple of thrill seekers. He sped up the footage again. The couple moved from oral to full-blown sex – over the hood and against the driver’s door. They were there for thirty-eight minutes.

Hunter moved on. At 9:49 p.m. Mr. Wang jumped into his pickup truck and left, leaving only Kelly’s car in the parking lot. At 10:26 p.m. Hunter slowed the footage down once again.

‘What the hell?’

He leaned closer to the screen and watched the events that unfolded in the next minute as his jaw dropped.

‘Sonofabitch.’

Sixty-Eight

In complete darkness she sat shivering, curled up into a tight ball. She felt lightheaded, nauseous and every muscle in her body ached with feverish intensity. Her throat scratched as if she’d swallowed a ball of barbed wire.

She had no real idea of how long she’d been locked up in that cell. She guessed a few days. There was no way she could be sure. The room had no windows and the weak light bulb inside the metal mesh box on the ceiling only came on for a few minutes at a time. The intervals were uneven. Sometimes four, sometimes five times a day. But the light always came on just before she was given food. It was like training a lab rat.

She was given four meals a day, slid to her on a plastic tray through a special hatch at the bottom of the cell’s heavy wooden door. The cell was small, ten paces long by eight wide, with bare brick walls, concrete floors, a metal-framed bed and a bucket on the corner, which was emptied once a day.

She moved her head and felt the room spin around again. The dizziness seemed to never go away. She wasn’t even sure if she was awake or asleep. It felt as if she was caught somewhere between the two states. The only thing she was sure of was that she was scared – really scared.

He watched her bring her hands to her face and wipe away the tears that never seemed to stop. He wondered how much more scared she’d be if he made a noise. If he made her realize that she wasn’t really alone. If she knew he was right there, hiding in the darkness, just three paces from her. How would she react if he extended his hand and touched her skin, her hair? How terrified would she be if he whispered something in her ear?

He smiled as he watched her shiver one more time. Maybe it was time she found out.