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  Hunter disconnected from the call and faced her.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Tracy,’ he said, his voice low and constricted. He could see her disappointment. ‘I need to go.’

  She nodded her understanding. ‘It’s OK, Robert. Go. I’ll explain it to everyone.’

  As Hunter rushed off the stage, Professor Adams grabbed the microphone from the podium, let out a sad sigh and faced a very confused crowd.

  Three

  Hunter’s watch read 9:31 p.m. by the time he got to the address he’d been given over the phone. Even at that time on a Wednesday evening, it had taken him around three quarters of an hour to cover the almost nineteen miles between Westwood and Silver Lake – an ethnically highly diverse neighborhood, just east of Hollywood. As he joined Berkeley Avenue, heading west, he immediately saw the cluster of police vehicles surrounding the entrance to North Benton Way.

  Hunter knew that in a city like Los Angeles, nothing could gather a crowd of curious onlookers faster than the combination of flashing police lights and black-and-yellow crime-scene tape. With that in mind, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the ever-growing mob of nearby residents that had already assembled by the perimeter – cellphones firmly in hand, hungry for a few seconds of video footage, or even just a decent picture so it could all be displayed on their social-media pages, like Pokémon trophies.

  The press had also beaten Hunter to the punch. With tripods and cameras mounted onto their rooftops, two news vans had taken positions on the sidewalk, just across the road from the police cordoned-off area. A couple of reporters were trying their best to obtain whatever information they could out of anyone who would talk to them.

  As he finally cleared the crowd, Hunter rolled down his window and presented his badge to one of the uniformed officers guarding the road’s entrance. The officer nodded before clearing the way for Hunter to drive through.

  North Benton Way was a quiet residential street just south of the famous Silver Lake Reservoir. Fully grown sycamore trees flanked both sides of the road, shading it from the sun during the day, but casting ominous shadows just about everywhere come dusk. The house Hunter was after was the sixth one along the right-hand side. A red VW Beetle and a blue Tesla S occupied both spaces on the driveway. Parked on the street, a little to the right of the house, Hunter could see three more black-and-white units, together with an LA County Coroner’s forensics van.

  Hunter pulled up in front of the van and stepped out of his car, his six-foot frame towering high above the sun-beaten roof of his old Buick LeSabre. He took a moment and allowed his gaze to run up and down the street. The neighboring houses were all lit up, with most of their residents either peering out their windows, or standing by the front door with a look of total shock and disbelief on their faces. As Hunter clipped his badge onto his belt, another car cleared the police barrier at the top of the road. Hunter immediately recognized the metallic blue Honda Civic. It belonged to his partner at the UVC Unit, Detective Carlos Garcia.

  ‘Just got here?’ Garcia asked as he parked next to one of the police cruisers and jumped out of his car.

  ‘Less than a minute ago,’ Hunter confirmed.

  Garcia’s longish brown hair, still damp from a late shower, was pulled back into a tight ponytail.

  Both detectives turned and faced the white-fronted house. Three solemn-faced officers were standing on the sidewalk across the road. Just behind them, a CSI agent, dressed in a hooded Tyvek coverall and armed with a ProTac flashlight, was meticulously scrutinizing the well-cared-for front lawn. At the house’s front porch, half sheltered by a blue forensics tent, a second agent was dusting the door handle and its frame for latent fingerprints.

  Noticing them, the oldest of the three police officers on the sidewalk broke away from the group and crossed the road in the direction of the two detectives.

  Hunter instantly noticed the single metal pin on the officer’s shirt collar, which identified him as a first lieutenant with the LAPD.

  ‘You guys must be UVC.’ The officer’s raspy voice sounded tired.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Garcia replied. ‘That would be us.’

  The lieutenant, who looked to be in his early fifties, was about three inches shorter than Hunter and at least forty-five pounds heavier, all of it around his waist.

  ‘I’m Lieutenant Frederick Jarvis with the Central Bureau,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Northeast Area Division.’

  Hunter and Garcia introduced themselves.

  ‘Were you first at the scene?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘No,’ Lieutenant Jarvis replied, turning around and indicating the two policemen he had left behind on the sidewalk. ‘Officer Grabowski and Perez were. I’m the one who decided to escalate this whole mess up to you guys in Ultra Violent Crimes.’

  ‘So you’ve been inside?’ Hunter asked.

  The lieutenant’s demeanor changed as he breathed out. ‘I have. Yes.’ He scratched his right cheek. ‘Thirty-one years in the force and in those years I have seen way more than my fair share of crazy, but if before I die I’m allowed to choose just one thing I could unsee . . .’ His chin jerked in the direction of the house. ‘That right in there would be it.’

  Four

  Hunter and Garcia signed the crime-scene manifest, collected a disposable forensics coverall each and began suiting up. Lieutenant Jarvis didn’t reach for one, clearly indicating that he had no intention of reentering that particular crime scene.

  ‘So what sort of information do we have on the victim so far?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘The very basic sort,’ the lieutenant replied, reaching for his notepad. ‘Her name was Linda Parker,’ he began. ‘Twenty-four years old from the Harbor, right here in LA. She made a living as a model. Her record was squeaky clean as far as we can tell – no arrests, no outstanding fines, no court orders . . . nothing. Her VW Beetle had only a few more months to go on finance before it was all paid off. Her taxes were also all paid on time and in full.’

  ‘Did she live here alone?’ Garcia again.

  ‘As far as we know – yes. No other names show on any of the utility bills or accounts.’

  ‘Any known boyfriends? Relationships?’

  The lieutenant shrugged. ‘We’ve had no time to gather that sort of information. Sorry, guys, you’re going to have to do the digging work on that.’

  Once again, Hunter allowed his stare to run up and down the street.

  ‘Anything at all from the neighbors?’ he asked. He knew the lieutenant would’ve already ordered a door-to-door of the neighboring houses.

  ‘Nothing. No one seems to have seen or heard anything, but my guys are still asking around, so maybe with a bit of luck—’

  ‘Unfortunately lady luck doesn’t seem to like us very much,’ Garcia said. There was no humor in his voice. ‘But who knows? Every day is a new day.’

  ‘It looks like the perp gained access to the house through the victim’s bedroom window at the back,’ Lieutenant Jarvis said. ‘It’s been smashed from the outside.’

  ‘How did he get access to the backyard?’ Garcia asked.

  The lieutenant nodded at the wooden door on the left of the house. A third forensic agent was dusting it for prints. ‘No signs of forced entry, but it wouldn’t take an athlete to climb over that.’

  ‘Is that the person who found the body?’ Hunter asked the lieutenant, his head tilting in the direction of the official vehicles parked on the road just to the right of the house.

  As soon as he’d stepped out of his car, Hunter had noticed a female officer kneeling by the opened passenger door of the black-and-white unit furthest from them. The officer wasn’t alone. A very distressed woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties, sat in the passenger seat in front of her.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lieutenant Jarvis replied. ‘At least you won’t have to go through the ordeal of informing the parents. She’s the victim’s mother.’

  Hunter and Garcia paused, their eyes going from the lieutenant to the wo
man sitting in the cruiser. Neither detective could think of a more soul-destroying experience for a mother to go through than to discover the brutally murdered body of her own daughter.

  ‘Understandably, she’s in shock,’ the lieutenant explained. ‘And not making a lot of sense right now, but from what we understand she used to speak to her daughter on a daily basis, either in person or on the phone.’ He rechecked his notes. ‘Last time they spoke was two days ago – on Monday afternoon. That was a phone conversation. They were supposed to have met for lunch yesterday, but her mother had to call and cancel. According to her, she called her daughter at around nine in the morning, but got no reply. The call went straight into voicemail. She left a message, but her daughter never called back. The mother tried calling again about forty-five minutes before they were supposed to meet, just to make sure her daughter had gotten the message and didn’t waste the trip. Again, straight into voicemail. She tried again last night and then again this morning and in the afternoon.’ Lieutenant Jarvis gave the detectives a confirming nod. ‘Voicemail every time. That was when the mother got worried. She said that, though unlikely, maybe her daughter had gotten upset because she had to cancel their lunch meeting yesterday, but according to her, even if that had been the case, her daughter would’ve called back by now. The mother called again and left one last message saying that she would drop by tonight.’

  ‘So what time did she get here today?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Around seven o’clock.’

  ‘How did she get in?’ Garcia this time. ‘Was the door unlocked?’

  ‘No, the door was locked, but her mother kept a spare key with her.’

  Hunter turned toward the CSI agent dusting the front door.

  ‘Break-in?’ he asked.

  ‘If it happened at this door, it wasn’t forcefully,’ the agent replied, looking back at Hunter. ‘The lock, the doorframe, nothing here has been tampered with, but this door has got a simple deadlock. It wouldn’t really take an expert to breach it.’

  Hunter and Garcia pulled their hoods over their heads and zipped up their coveralls.

  ‘Through the living room,’ Lieutenant Jarvis explained, gesturing as he did. ‘Onto the hallway on the other side and into the bedroom at the end of it. If you get lost, just follow the smell of blood.’ The lieutenant didn’t phrase his last sentence as a joke. ‘And if I were you, I wouldn’t disregard the nose mask.’

  Linda Parker’s front door opened straight into a spacious living room, pleasantly decorated with a mixture of shabby-chic and traditional furniture, all of it complemented by pastel curtains, which matched the room’s rugs and cushions. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing suggested a struggle.

  Another forensics agent, also searching for latent prints, was working her way through the many surfaces in the room. She acknowledged the detectives with a subtle nod.

  The wooden-floor corridor that led to the rest of the house was short and wide, with a single door on the right-hand side, two on the left and one at the end of it. Only the second door on the left-hand side was shut. The walls were adorned by several framed photographs – fashion-magazine-cover style. They all showed the same striking model – slender and toned with a heart-shaped face, full lips, a delicate nose, upturned eyes that were almost aquamarine in color and cheekbones most women would pay a fortune for.

  Hunter and Garcia made their way toward the room at the end of the hallway.

  A quick peek into the open door on the right – bedroom.

  The open door on the left – bathroom.

  They would check the shut door later.

  As they finally got to the crime-scene room, they paused at the door in flustered silence.

  Of one thing Hunter and Garcia were both absolutely sure – Lieutenant Jarvis’s wish would never come true. He would never be able to unsee what was inside that room.

  Five

  The man was jolted awake by the loud sound of a motorcycle in the streets outside. For a while he lay on his back, immobile, staring up at the ceiling. The room he was in was illuminated only by the weak moonlight that came in through the large window on the wall to his left, but he didn’t mind the darkness. Actually, he preferred it. The way he saw it, it matched the color of his soul.

  The man concentrated on his breathing, trying to calm it down. In through your nose, he mentally told himself as he breathed in. And out through your mouth. He exhaled. In through your nose. Breathed in. And out through your mouth. Exhaled.

  Slowly his rapid breathing began to steady itself again.

  The man was soaking wet, drenched in cold sweat, just as he always was when he woke up from ‘the nightmare’. The visions were always the same – violent . . . grotesque . . . painful – but he didn’t want to think about them. He never did. So while focusing on his breathing, he banished the images back to the darkest places in his mind, with one certainty – sooner or later they would come back again. They always did.

  It took him ten minutes to finally move from lying down to sitting up. Most of the cold sweat had dried against his skin, making him feel sticky and filthy. He needed a shower. He always needed a shower after ‘the nightmare’.

  In the bathroom he turned on the water and waited until steam began clouding the room before stepping under the strong and warm jet. The man closed his eyes and allowed the water to splash against his face . . . his skin. He could practically feel his pores dilating, welcoming the cleansing.

  He adored that sensation.

  The man thoroughly washed his entire body twice over before retrieving a razorblade and a bottle of baby oil from the shower caddy. He poured some of the oil onto the palm of his right hand and slobbered it all over his left leg. The process was then repeated – left hand, right leg. It was always done in that sequence. He placed the razorblade under the water jet for a couple of seconds before bending down and bringing it to his right shin.

  Years ago, a prostitute had told him that to avoid skin rashes when shaving off body hair, especially underarms and around his groin area, he should use baby or coconut oil.

  ‘You should try it,’ she had told him. ‘Rashes and skin burns will be a thing of the past, trust me.’

  She was right. It really did work. Not only did it free him from rashes and skin burns, but it also made his skin feel smoother than ever.

  The man shaved his body daily, sometimes even twice a day, from his head all the way down to the little hairs on his toes. He did it not because he was irrational, or a fanatic, or because voices told him to. He did it simply because he enjoyed the way his skin felt in the absence of hair. How so much more sensitive it became. The only part of his body he wouldn’t shave was his eyebrows. He’d tried it once before, but he didn’t like the result. It made him look odd . . . creepy even, and he was yet to find fake eyebrows that looked as good as real ones, unlike wigs and fake beards, which he had quite a collection of.

  The man finished the long shaving process, turned off the water, stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry. Back in the bedroom, he stood naked in front of a full-sized mirror, admiring his own body.

  Full of pride, he turned to his left and switched on the large pedestal fan he kept there. As the gust of air came into contact with his smooth skin, his whole body shivered, sending a wave of ecstasy up and down his spine more powerful and pleasurable than any drug was ever able to achieve. It was as if the shaving ritual had enhanced his skin’s sensory receptors tenfold.

  The man bathed in that bliss for several minutes before finally switching off the fan.

  ‘I guess it’s time to go get ready,’ he told himself, his body shivering one more time, this time from the pure thrill of anticipation.

  The man just couldn’t wait to do it all over again.

  Six

  When it came to crime scenes, it was no real surprise that Hunter and Garcia were known for having ‘thick skin’. They had witnessed more bloody and brutal homicide aftermaths than most detectives in the entire his
tory of the LAPD. Very few acts of violence still had the capacity to shake them. What they saw inside Linda Parker’s bedroom that evening was one of them.

  ‘What the hell?’ Garcia uttered those words almost unconsciously. Despite all his experience, his brain was having trouble comprehending the images his eyes were capturing.

  Everything about that crime scene was unsettling, starting with the temperature inside the room.

  In Los Angeles, the average high temperature in April was around twenty-one degrees Celsius, but the room felt a lot more like two, five at a push.

  Garcia folded his arms in front of his chest to keep some of his body heat, but the unusual cold temperature was only the beginning. The room before them was plastered in crimson red – the floor, the rug, the curtains, the furniture, the bed, the walls . . . everything, and still, all that blood amounted to nothing more than a silly joke when compared to the centerpiece in the room.

  Linda Parker’s body had been left on the bed, which had its headboard pushed up against the south wall. She was lying on her back, on blood-soaked sheets that had once been white. Her arms were resting by her torso, with her legs naturally extended, but the extremities to all four of her limbs were missing. Her feet had been hacked off at the ankles and her hands at the wrists, but that too played second fiddle to the killer’s main disturbing act.

  Linda Parker’s body had been skinned, leaving behind a grotesque mess of brownish-red muscle tissue, naked organs and exposed bones. The smell of rotting flesh toxified the air inside the room.

  ‘Welcome to your new nightmare, guys.’

  The odd greeting came from Kevin White, the forty-eight-year-old lead forensics agent who was standing to one side of the bed. He was five-foot-ten with light brown eyes under thick, unruly eyebrows. His hair, currently covered by the hood of his Tyvek coverall, was fair and thinning at the top. His mask hid a long nose and a thin mustache that looked more like peach fuzz than facial hair. He was a very experienced agent, who had worked with Hunter and Garcia at a handful of crime scenes before. Kevin White was also an expert in forensic entomology.