Written in Blood Read online

  Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  Dedication

  Initially, this book was supposed to be dedicated in loving memory of my partner, Kara Louise Irvine, who left this world in September 2019, taking with her all of my heart, but since then, the whole world has received a wake-up call.

  So much has changed for so many of us.

  With that in mind, I would like to dedicate this novel not only to Kara, but in loving memory of everyone who unfortunately has lost their battle against COVID-19. We weren’t prepared.

  To everyone else – that battle carries on, so please stay safe.

  One

  Los Angeles, California, Saturday, December 5th

  There were exactly three weeks until Christmas Day. To Angela Wood, that Saturday officially marked the beginning of what she called ‘high season’. Shopping malls, main streets, even tiny corner shops would already be covered in fake snow, flashing lights and colorful decorations, all of them heaving with people eager to spend, searching for those perfect gifts. It was the one time of the year when, with a shrug, most people would turn a blind eye to the state of their finances and say to themselves, ‘Oh, what the hell, it’s Christmas’ – and with that they would dig deep and go beyond their means, spending more, sometimes a hell of a lot more than their bank accounts would’ve allowed them to.

  To Angela, ‘high season’ meant happy people with fat wallets in their pockets and handbags, because as Christmas approached, for a limited period, real cash tended to make a comeback. In this day and age, on any given day, most denizens of Los Angeles carried no cash with them, not even small change – everything was touch-and-go – from buying a single pack of gum from a corner store to spending an absolute fortune on Rodeo Drive. No cash, no mess, no fuss. The era of electronic purchases had well and truly arrived. Not that it mattered that much to any salesperson or shop owner anyway. But Angela was no salesperson. She was no business owner either. What she was, was a master pickpocket and, as such, touch-and-go didn’t really work for her. Sure, she could and did make use of credit cards and smartphones when she got them, but in her world, cash was king, and that was why ‘high season’ always put a smile on her face.

  This year Angela decided to start her high season by paying a visit to a cozy shopping street in Tujunga Village.

  Located near Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, Tujunga Avenue was nestled between the neighborhoods of Colfax Meadows and Woodbridge Park. ‘The Village’ was the trendy block-long stretch where one would find a very diverse and charming variety of shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars and cafés. Not surprisingly, The Village attracted a significant number of shoppers all year round, especially over the week-ends. During ‘high season’, that number would multiply exponentially, flooding the street with an ocean of happy people and their loaded wallets.

  Whenever possible, Angela preferred to work at night, which was another reason why she loved the festive season so much. To accommodate the heavy number of customers, most shops stayed open later than usual throughout the month of December. Knowing that, Angela got to Tujunga Village just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the horizon, and as she approached The Village from the Woodbridge side she was pleased to see that the number of shoppers crowding the street seemed to have doubled, compared to just a year ago.

  ‘Oh, I so love Christmas season,’ Angela said to herself, as she cracked her knuckles against the palms of her hands before slipping on a pair of very thin, red leather gloves.

  With the sun just about to bid a final goodnight to the City of Angels, the temperature on the streets had slipped down to eight degrees Celsius, not bad for a winter night where Angela was from, but in a city where the heat and the sun were considered honorary residents, eight degrees was more than enough to cause any proud Angeleno to search their wardrobes for the thickest and warmest coat they could find. For someone like Angela, thick winter coats were a blessing in disguise, because most people made good use of their outside pockets. Such coats offered a thicker layer of insulation between the person’s body and those outside pockets, which meant that one didn’t even need to be a proficient pick-pocket to be able to relieve a victim of their possessions. In a crowded environment, where bumping into another person on the street or inside a store was certainly excusable, picking somebody’s pocket became an even easier task. To a highly skilled expert like Angela, a congested Tujunga Village where eighty percent of people were wearing thick coats was like a free gift shop.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ Angela said as she joined the crowd, her eyes like a hawk’s searching for prey.

  Before she had even made it halfway down the block-long stretch, Angela had already snatched three wallets. It could easily have been more, a lot more, but during ‘high season’ Angela had no reason to ‘pick-blind’ – snatch a wallet without having a good idea of what she was getting.

  Her approach was simple and uncomplicated – observe as a customer paid for an item either in store or on the streets. The advantage of that simplistic approach was two-fold: One – Angela could easily identify who was carrying cash and who wasn’t. Two – she could see where the target had placed their wallet – coat pocket, jacket pocket, handbag, etc. With that done, all that was left for Angela to do was tail the target and wait for the right moment to strike, and she never rushed. This time around, it took her only fifteen minutes to get to what Angela called ‘checking time’.

  Angela never allowed greed to take over. Not anymore. The one time she did, it had been her downfall, costing her a short stint in jail, a place she swore she’d never go back to. Since then, she would only pick a maximum of three wallets at a time, before checking them for cash and credit cards. If she had made enough, she would call it a day. If not, she would dispose of the wallets before going back to the streets for a second round.

  After lifting her third wallet, Angela needed a safe place to check the contents of her pickings. Tucked away just behind the historic and always busy Vitello’s restaurant, right at the heart of Tujunga Village, was the Rendition Room – a 1930s-themed, speakeasy cocktail bar, the restroom of which would be perfect for what Angela needed to do

  Angela had been to the Rendition Room a couple of times before, but she had never seen that place so busy. In the ladies’ restroom, she had to wait in line for over five minutes before she could use one of the cubicles. Once in there, she checked the wallets for how much cash they had, and she couldn’t be any happier.

  Six hundred and eighty-seven bucks for less than fifteen minutes’ work, she thought to herself, as she hid most of the cash inside her bra. Not bad for day one.

  For a split second, she considered going back out onto The Village for a second round. ‘There’s so much more out there,’ ‘Reckless Angela’ tried to whisper in her ear. ‘You could make one month’s picking in one night.’

  But ‘Sensible Angela’ was right there too and, in a heartbeat, she slapped that idea back into oblivion.

  ‘We’re done here, Angela. You know much better than this. Instead of doing the dumb thing, why don’t you go celebrate and have a drink? After all, you’re in a cocktail bar.’

  Angela did know much better than that. Since doing jail time, she never argued with reason anymore.

  Before exiting the cubicle, and since she was done for the night, Angela first removed the black wig she had on, then her dark contact lenses, and put them aw
ay.

  Out in the busy bar area, it took her several minutes to finally get served. After skimming through the cocktail menu, Angela decided to go with a classic – the sidecar. Tablewise, she got lucky pretty quickly. Just as she turned away from the bar with her drink, a small, circular, stand-up table vacated just a few feet from her. Angela quickly stepped up to it.

  As she sipped her cocktail, her eyes began scanning the crowd. Not that she was reconsidering her decision to call it a night. To Angela, scanning people around her, no matter where she was, had become second nature . . . a reflex . . . a force of habit. It was something she did without even realizing that she was doing it. Within twenty seconds, she had singled out three of the easiest pickings she had ever seen.

  Four tables to her right – two forty-something men. Both positively tipsy. The one wearing glasses had placed his wallet in his jacket pocket and then placed the folded jacket on the empty stool to his right, wallet pocket facing up.

  Three tables in front of her – two twenty-something women sipping margaritas. The one with her back to Angela had her unzipped handbag hanging from the back of her chair.

  Next table along to her right – a tall gentleman whose attention was cemented onto his cellphone. He had placed a very elegant leather bag on the floor, several inches away from his feet. Angela hadn’t seen the contents of the bag, but she was willing to bet that it would be something valuable.

  People have absolutely no clue, Angela thought, as she shook her head ever so slightly. It’s like they never learn.

  As Angela’s attention moved back from the bag on the floor to the man and his cellphone, an older gentleman, probably in his mid-sixties, approached the man. Angela could hear their conversation.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the older gentleman said. He was carrying a whisky tumbler. ‘Do you mind if I rest my drink on your table? It’s quite busy tonight.’

  The tall man did not break eye contact with his phone.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  Angela frowned at the man’s reply, as if she’d heard it wrong.

  The older gentleman was clearly taken aback, too.

  ‘I’ll just use a tiny corner of the table,’ the older gentleman tried again. ‘Just to rest my drink. I won’t bother you.’

  ‘Well, you’re already bothering me,’ the tall man said back, finally locking eyes with the older gentleman. ‘Go find somewhere else to rest your drink, old-timer. This table is taken.’

  Angela’s eyes widened as she stared at the tall man in disbelief. What a total dickhead, she thought.

  Lost for words, the old man stood still for a moment, not really knowing what to do.

  ‘I said fuck off, old man,’ the tall man said, his voice firm.

  Shocked, the old man turned and walked away.

  Angela was just about to offer her table to the older man when ‘Reckless Angela’ whispered in her ear.

  ‘That guy with the phone is a total and utter dick, Angie. You could teach him a lesson.’

  Angela’s eyes went back to the man’s leather bag on the floor.

  The tall man’s attention returned to his cellphone.

  Angela finished her drink and rounded her table to the other side. She was now standing just behind the tall man. She grabbed her cellphone and brought it to her ear so she would look inconspicuous. As she began her fake phone conversation, her right foot moved out just enough to reach the tip of his leather bag’s shoulder strap on the floor.

  The man was ferociously typing something into his cellphone.

  As Angela fake-talked on the phone, she rotated her body away from the man and took two steps in that direction. She stretched her neck and looked around the place, as if searching for someone else inside the cocktail bar. As she did, her right foot stealthily dragged the man’s leather bag along with her.

  The man was way too occupied with his cellphone to notice his bag moving an extra two feet away from him, but if he had, with the place so busy, Angela could easily just give him the excuse that her foot had got tangled in the shoulder strap by chance, that was all, a simple mistake.

  Angela took another step; another bag-drag, and then Lady Luck smiled at her. A few tables in the opposite direction, someone knocked a tray of drinks to the floor. The loud noise of glasses and bottles breaking attracted a multitude of eyes, including the tall man’s. By the time his attention returned to his phone, just a few seconds later, Angela was already exiting the Rendition Room with the man’s leather bag hidden inside her coat. Five minutes after that, she was on board the 237 bus, heading home.

  Angela was dying to look inside the bag, but despite getting a seat at the back of the bus, she resisted the urge. She didn’t want any prying eyes checking the contents as well.

  From Tujunga Village, it took her a little over forty-five minutes to get home, a small one-bedroom apartment on the south end of Colfax Avenue. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she kicked off her shoes and took a seat on her bed. Legs crossed, yoga style, Angela placed the leather bag in front of her and finally unzipped it open.

  Disappointment.

  Maybe it was due to the size and shape of the bag, or maybe it was because of how much it weighed, but Angela was almost certain that it would contain something like a laptop or a tablet. It didn’t. The only item inside the bag was an eight-by-eleven-inch black, leather-bound journal, which was surprisingly heavy.

  ‘Wow, so instead of a laptop, I get a notebook? Awesome.’

  Angela laughed at her misfortune, glad that the only reason she had snatched that leather bag had been to teach that dick-head from the bar a lesson.

  ‘What a rude motherfucker,’ she said with a shake of the head. ‘I hope that this book is important to you.’

  Instinctively, she flipped the book open and carelessly leafed through the pages. The first thing she noticed was that the pages were packed with neat, dense handwriting. Not all the pages contained words. A few of them had been filled with crude drawings and sketches, which Angela didn’t pay much attention to. Some had Polaroid photos stapled onto them. As her eyes came to rest on the first photograph she came across, her heart skipped a beat.

  She flipped to another page . . . another Polaroid photo. This time, her heart pretty much stopped beating. With shaky hands she lifted up the photo to see if there was anything written at the back of it, or on the page behind the photo. There was nothing.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Those words dribbled out of Angela’s lips and, reflexively, her eyes moved to the words on the page, directly beneath the photo. A few lines were all that she could manage before her entire body started shaking.

  ‘Oh God! What the fuck have you done, Angie? What the fuck have you done?’

  Two

  Monday, December 7th

  The LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit’s office was located at the far end of the Robbery Homicide Division’s floor, inside the famous Police Administration Building, in downtown Los Angeles. Detective Robert Hunter, who was the head of the UVC Unit, had just returned from his lunch break when the phone on his desk rang.

  He answered it after the second ring. ‘Detective Hunter, Ultra Violent Crimes Unit.’

  ‘Robert, it’s Susan,’ the caller announced. ‘Do you have a minute?’

  Dr. Susan Slater was one of the best lead forensics agents California had to offer. She had worked closely with the UVC Unit in a number of cases.

  ‘Of course, Doc,’ Hunter replied. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dr. Slater said before a brief pause. ‘There might be.’

  Intrigued, Hunter readjusted his position on his seat. ‘OK, I’m listening.’ His eyes moved to the diary on his desk and he instinctively flipped back a few pages, just to be one hundred percent sure that the UVC Unit wasn’t waiting on any forensics test results.

  He was right.

  ‘This is a funny story,’ Dr. Slater began. ‘This morning, as I was leaving my house to come to the lab, I chec
ked my mailbox, as I do every morning. Besides the usual weekend junk mail, I found a regular office-size envelope. The envelope had my name in large letters across the front of it, but that was about it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘It didn’t have my home address, Robert,’ the doctor explained. ‘Just my name. There was no stamp, no US postal service mark, and no return address either.’

  ‘Which means that it was hand-delivered.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Dr. Slater agreed.

  ‘Have you opened it yet?’

  ‘I have, but obviously, after all the necessary precautions. What I was presented with, was a book.’

  ‘OK?’ Hunter frowned at the phone.

  ‘Well, to be more specific . . . it’s some kind of journal, really.’

  ‘What sort of journal?’

  There was another brief pause.

  ‘The kind of journal that I think you and Carlos need to come have a look at.’

  Three

  Hunter’s long-term partner at the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit was Detective Carlos Garcia. They shared the same office space – a claustrophobic 22-square-meter concrete box with a single window, two desks and not much else, but it was still a completely separate enclosure from the rest of the Robbery Homicide Division floor, which, if nothing else, kept prying eyes and the endless buzzing of voices locked out.

  While Hunter was on the phone to Dr. Slater, Garcia was seated at his desk, going over some electronic paperwork.

  ‘Want to take a ride to the FSD Criminalistics Lab?’ Hunter asked him, as soon as he disconnected from the call, already reaching for his jacket.

  The FSD Criminalistics Lab, part of the LAPD’s Forensics Science Division (FSD), was comprised of eight specialized unit laboratories, which provided support services to investigations conducted by the various departments of the LAPD. Most of those labs operated out of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, located inside the campus of the California State University in Alhambra, in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles.