Hunter swung his arm around again. A desperate attempt from someone who knew this war was lost. He couldn’t even defend himself. The only thing he could do was wait for the next blow. And it came in the form of a low kick to the knee. A jolt of pain ran up Hunter’s leg and gravity sent him plunging to the floor. His back and head slammed against the wall behind him hard. Andrew wasn’t only invisible and soundless; he knew how to fight too.

‘The question is,’ Andrew said, ‘should I keep on beating you up until you’re dead . . . or should I use your gun and end this with a bullet to your head?’

‘Andrew, you don’t have to do this.’ Hunter’s voice was heavy, defeated, and gurgling in blood.

‘I told you not to call me Andrew.’

‘OK,’ Hunter accepted it. ‘Do you want me to call you Bryan? Bryan Coleman?’

Silence, and for the first time Hunter sensed Andrew’s hesitation.

‘That’s the new identity you chose for yourself, right? Bryan Coleman? Director of Production at the A & E TV network. We sat face to face just a couple of days ago.’

‘Wow,’ Andrew said, clapping his hands. ‘Your reputation is well deserved. You figured out something no one else could.’

‘Your identity isn’t a secret any more,’ Hunter carried on. ‘Whatever happens here tonight, the LAPD know who you are now. You can’t stay in the dark forever.’ Hunter paused, took a deep breath and felt his lungs burn with pain. ‘You need help, Bryan. Somehow, alone, for twenty years, you managed to cope with something that no one could handle on their own.’

‘You don’t know anything, Detective. You have no idea what I’ve been through.’

Andrew had moved again. His voice was now coming from Hunter’s right.

‘I spent three days in that attic, hiding, scared, trying to decide what to do.’ He paused. ‘I decided I didn’t wanna stay in Healdsburg. I didn’t wanna be taken away to some orphanage somewhere. I didn’t wanna be the kid everyone had pity on. So I waited into night-time and then I ran. It was quite easy to hide in the back of a truck at the interstate gas station.’

Hunter remembered that the Harpers’ old family house was less than half a mile from Interstate 101.

‘You’d be surprised how easy it is for a kid to survive on the streets of a big city like LA. But being away from Healdsburg didn’t help. For twenty years I’ve had the same images playing in my head every time I close my eyes.’

Hunter coughed a red mist of blood. ‘What happened in your house twenty years ago wasn’t your fault, Bryan. You can’t blame yourself for what your father did.’

‘My father loved my mother. He gave his life for her.’

‘He didn’t give his life for her. He took his life as well as hers in a moment of rage.’

‘BECAUSE SHE BETRAYED HIM.’ The shout came from directly in front of Hunter, but too far away for him to react. ‘He loved her with every beat of his heart. It took me years to understand what had really happened. But now I know that he took her life and his for love . . . pure love.’

Hunter had been right, Andrew’s vision of what true love meant was completely distorted, but arguing it right now was pointless. Hunter needed to try and calm him down, not irritate him further.

‘It’s still not your fault,’ he said.

‘SHUT UP. You don’t know what happened. You don’t know what caused my father to lose his mind. But I’ll tell you . . . I did. I told him. It was all my fault.’

One Hundred and Thirteen

Hunter sensed the anguish and pain in Andrew’s voice. Pain that came from deep inside. Something he had been carrying with him for all these years.

‘How do you think my father found out about Mr. Gardner and my mother?’ Andrew asked.

Hunter hadn’t thought of that, but he didn’t need to reflect for long to know the answer.

‘I saw them together one day. I saw them in my parents’ room, in my parents’ bed. I knew what they were doing was wrong . . . really wrong.’ A desperate quiver had found its way into Andrew’s voice, the memory still way too vivid in his mind. ‘I didn’t know what to do. Somehow I knew that what my mom was doing would destroy her marriage to my father. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted them to be happy again . . . together.’ He hesitated for an instant.

‘So you told your father,’ Hunter whispered.

‘A week before it all happened. I told him that I saw Nathan Gardner coming into our house one day. That was all I told him, nothing else.’ The hurt in his voice grew stronger. ‘I didn’t know that my father would be capable of . . .’ He trailed off.

‘Still not your fault,’ Hunter said again. ‘As you’ve said, you didn’t know your father would react the way he did. Your intention was to save your parents’ marriage, to keep them together. His reaction wasn’t your fault.’

Silence took over for a moment.

‘Do you know what I remember the most about my mother?’ Andrew had moved yet again. ‘She told me that when I was her age I’d find someone just like her – beautiful . . . talented . . . Someone I could fall in love with.’ He paused for a second. ‘I’ve waited for that birthday for twenty years. For the day that I could finally start choosing my perfect partner.’

Suddenly everything started to make sense to Hunter. They’d been right. The women Andrew Harper kidnapped symbolized a combination of maternal and romantic love. He wanted to fall in love with them, but he also wanted – needed – them to look like his mother. She had told him that when he was thirty, her exact age when she died, he’d find his perfect match, someone just like her. Hunter had checked Andrew’s birth certificate. His birthday was on February 22 – two days before Kelly Jensen, his first kidnap victim, had been taken. Andrew had been searching for his victims for a while, but his subconscious prohibited him from taking any action until his thirtieth birthday. In his fragile mind, his mother’s words were a rule that couldn’t be broken. He had been waiting for that birthday for a very long time. And he’d lost no time when that day arrived. Andrew’s mind had distorted what his mother had said in a way only a severely traumatized mind could.

‘So you found them,’ Hunter said. ‘Women who looked just like your mother. Who were as talented as she was—’

‘No one could ever be as talented as my mother.’ Anger returned to Andrew’s voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ Hunter corrected himself. ‘You found candidates for your love . . . and took them from their homes . . . studios . . . cars . . . But you couldn’t fall in love with them, could you?’

Silence.

‘You took them and you held them captive. You watched them in silence every day, just like you did with your mother. But the longer you watched them, the more they reminded you of her, didn’t they? That’s why you couldn’t touch them in a sexual way, or in any other way. You couldn’t hurt them either. But unfortunately the memory of your mother brought back something else.’

Hunter wiped his mouth of the blood.

‘It reminded you of her betrayal to your father’s love,’ he continued. ‘Her betrayal to your love. Her betrayal to your family. And in the end, instead of falling in love, you hated them. You hated them for that betrayal. You hated them for the exact same reason you took them in the first place. For reminding you of your mother.’

Andrew didn’t reply.

‘So just like your father, you allowed rage to take over, and when it did, it took you right back to that day and what you saw him do to your mother.’