I Am Death Read online

  Ricky squinted as he looked at the photograph of a skinny kid with short, light-brown hair.

  ‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’

  The man didn’t look surprised. Junior high students would never mingle with elementary ones. Not even outcasts like Ricky Temple.

  ‘Anyway,’ the man continued. ‘He really, really could use a friend. I know that he’s only in fourth grade, but he’s a smart kid, he really is, and he’s got loads of games that I’m sure you’ll be into as well. You guys could play together.’ He gave Ricky a moment. ‘C’mon, you’ve got nothing to lose, and I’ll get your bike fixed for you, what do you say?’

  Ricky scratched his chin.

  One more quick look at his watch. ‘OK, so just wait right here for five minutes. I’ll go pick up John and come back. You can meet him first, then you decide.’

  ‘He likes comic books?’ Ricky asked.

  The man chuckled. ‘That’s putting it mildly.’

  Ricky shrugged. ‘He sounds like he could be a cool guy.’

  ‘He is. He really is.’

  ‘OK then,’ Ricky conceded.

  The man smiled and carried Ricky’s bike across the road. After placing it in the back of his car, he got into the driver’s seat.

  ‘We still have to get those hands and knees properly cleaned up,’ the man said as he geared up and got the car in motion. He turned right, then at the end of the block he swung left.

  Ricky frowned as the man drove past the entrance to Morningside school.

  ‘You just missed the school.’ Ricky turned to look at the driver.

  The man was looking at him with an evil smile on his lips.

  ‘Relax, kid.’ His voice had changed. Gone were the warmth and the soft tones, substituted by a firm, cold and throaty voice.

  ‘There’s nothing anyone can do for you now.’

  Four

  The crammed, open-plan space that formed the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division was located just down the hall from Hunter’s office. There were no flimsy partitions or silly booths separating the messy labyrinth of desks. Identification was made either by desk nameplates, when they could be seen, or by shouting a detective’s name and waiting to see who would raise their hand and shout back ‘right here’.

  Even at that time in the morning, the RHD sounded and looked like a beehive, alive with movement and buzzing with incomprehensible noise that seemed to come from every corner.

  Captain Barbara Blake’s office was at the far end of the floor. It wasn’t a large room by any means, but it was spacious enough. The south wall was taken by bookshelves overflowing with hardcovers, the north one by a few framed photographs, commendations and achievement awards. The east wall was a floor-to-ceiling panoramic window, looking out over South Main Street. Directly in front of her mahogany twin desk were two bourbon-colored, Chesterfield leather armchairs. A rectangular black and white rug centered the room.

  Hunter gave the door three firm knocks. A second later, he heard a voice from inside say, ‘Come in.’

  Captain Blake was sitting behind her desk, with the phone receiver held firmly to her left ear.

  ‘I couldn’t care less how you do it,’ she said into the mouthpiece, lifting a hand at Hunter, ushering him inside and indicating that she’d be two seconds. ‘Just get it done . . . today.’ She slammed down the phone.

  At least in here, nothing has changed, Hunter thought.

  Barbara Blake had been captain of LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division for the past five years. Upon taking over from the previous captain, it hadn’t taken her long to establish a reputation as a no-nonsense, iron-fist leader. She certainly was an intriguing woman – tall, elegant and very attractive, with long black hair and piercing dark eyes that could either calm you or make you shiver with a simple stare. Nothing and no one intimidated her.

  ‘Robert,’ she said, getting up. She wore a tailor-made, light-gray suit with a white viscose blouse, black shoes and a thin black belt. Her hair was styled into a bun, and her small pearl earrings matched her necklace. ‘Welcome back.’ She paused for a short instant. ‘I’m sorry that your vacation didn’t turn out to be a vacation at all.’

  Despite not knowing the true extent of the revelations brought on by the investigation Hunter had been involved in during his short time with the FBI, there was real sentiment in Captain Blake’s tone of voice.

  Hunter’s reply was a simple nod.

  The captain walked around to the front of her desk and paused, her forehead creasing slightly.

  ‘Where the hell is Carlos?’ she asked, instinctively tilting her body to one side to look past Hunter.

  Hunter mirrored her questioning look.

  ‘He’s down the corridor, in the office, packing.’ He used a thumb to point over his shoulder.

  ‘Packing?’ The forehead creasing turned into an even more bewildered look. ‘Packing what?’

  Hunter looked just as confused – Garcia had to have spoken to the captain about his transfer.

  ‘His stuff.’

  The captain’s stare turned blank.

  ‘San Francisco? Their Fraud Division?’ Hunter said with a subtle headshake. ‘Just like our WCCU?’

  Blank morphed into total perplexity.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Robert?’

  Right at that moment, the door to Captain Blake’s office was pushed open and Garcia stepped inside.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Captain. I had to sort out a few things on my desk.’

  Looking completely lost, Hunter turned to face him.

  ‘Wow,’ Garcia said with a prankster’s smile on his face. ‘You ate up all that crap like a hungry baby, didn’t you? Frisco? Their Fraud Division? Really, Robert? C’mon!’

  Captain Blake stiffened a smile. She didn’t have to ask. She had already figured out what had happened.

  ‘Son of a—’ Hunter said before a huge smile appeared on his lips.

  ‘Maybe you’re getting old, buddy,’ Garcia joked, tapping Hunter on the shoulder as he moved inside. ‘Losing your touch and all. I thought you’d be able to call my bluff straight away.’

  Hunter bowed his head, accepting it. ‘Maybe I am getting too old for this.’ The smile was still on his lips. ‘I really never saw this coming. Even after you mentioned the fraud division. That should’ve been my clue.’

  ‘Or maybe I’m just that good,’ Garcia said, renewing his smile. ‘That hug at the end was a great touch, wasn’t it? A few more seconds and I would probably have managed a few tears too.’

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ Hunter said. ‘I had already bought the whole thing by then.’

  ‘OK,’ Captain Blake said, breaking up the joke, her tone quickly moving from playful to serious. She reached for two files that were on her desk. ‘Playtime is well and truly over, boys. Welcome back to the UV Unit.’

  ‘So what have we got, Captain?’ Garcia asked.

  Captain Blake handed a file to each detective. The hesitation in her voice wasn’t for effect.

  ‘A fucking nightmare, that’s what.’

  Five

  After the man had taken him captive, Ricky was undressed and beaten to unconsciousness. When he finally came to, he was hosed down with a powerful jet of freezing water and then beaten again, this time with a thick belt that broke his skin and left him bleeding. A few lashes were all it took before he passed out once more.

  Ricky’s eyelids flickered in rapid succession for a long moment before he finally managed to force them open, but it made no difference. The darkness inside the small, windowless cell was absolute. In spite of that, his drowsy eyes first moved left, then right, as if searching for something before almost closing again. The blur of confusion that had enveloped his brain was so intense, he was unsure if any of this was true, if he was really awake or not.

  But then came the pain – powerful, unmistakable and immediate like a nuclear blast, spreading through every atom of his body with unimaginable speed and doing away with the doubt.
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  This was no nightmare. This was something much, much worse.

  That realization brought with it fear on a scale Ricky had never experienced before.

  He coughed, and that seemed to enrage the pain further. Colored sparkles of light exploded just behind his eyelids, and with each explosion he felt as if a nail was being hammered deep into his skull. He was about to succumb to the pain and allow it to drag him back into oblivion again when he heard a noise coming from somewhere to his right.

  Ricky froze.

  Clunk.

  It sounded like the door to his cell was being unlocked.

  The boy’s terrified eyes darted in that direction and he waited.

  Clunk, clunk.

  Two more rotations of the lock, a pause, and then the door began to open.

  Sheer fear made Ricky reflexively recoil on the cold cement floor, burying his face into his arms and bringing his knees up to his chest, in a defensive, human-ball position. With his movement came more agonizing pain and the bone-chilling sound of metal scraping against metal, as the thick chain firmly shackled to his right ankle rattled against the metal loop fixed into the crude brick wall.

  Tears automatically welled up in his eyes, his throat constricted and his breathing became erratic. His heart hammered inside his chest as if trying to beat its way out of his body.

  The light bulb encased in the metal wire box at the center of the ceiling blinked a couple of times before engaging. As it did, it brought with it an electric buzz that made it sound as though the room had suddenly been swarmed by angry wasps. Ricky had been lying in darkness for such a long time that, even though he closed his eyes, the light burned at his eyeballs.

  The sound of his captor’s boots clicking against the floor as he entered the room fired a new stream of white-hot panic through Ricky’s small and fragile body. He began shivering uncontrollably. He didn’t have to look. He knew the man was there because he could smell him – a bitter, sour, and sickly sweet fear-inducing mixture of scents that scared the little boy down to his soul. If evil had a smell, Ricky was sure that that was it.

  The man’s nauseating odor ripped through Ricky’s nostrils and scraped at the back of his throat like cat claws.

  Ricky wanted to be strong, just like he always was when he was bullied in school by Brad Nichols and his gang, but he was so terrified he had practically lost control of his actions.

  ‘Please . . . don’t . . . don’t beat me again.’ The words escaped his lips without his consent.

  There was no reply. All Ricky could hear was the man’s heavy breathing as he stood by the door, and to him the man sounded like an angry, fire-breathing dragon.

  ‘Plea— Please.’ His voice came out weak and in spurts.

  The footsteps got closer.

  Ricky curled into an even tighter ball and squeezed his eyes, bracing himself. He knew what was coming and the anticipation hurt almost as much as the blows.

  ‘What’s your name, kid?’ The man’s voice filled the room with undeniable authority, but it sounded very different from when they had spoken near Ricky’s school. It was now throaty, firm, and cold.

  Ricky froze. Was this a different person again?

  The boy’s breathing became even more labored.

  ‘Look at me.’ The words sounded like they’d been delivered through angry, clenched teeth.

  Ricky was too scared to move.

  ‘Look. At. Me.’

  The human ball that Ricky had turned into slowly began to come undone.

  ‘Open your eyes, and look at me.’

  Ricky finally lifted his head from his arms. His eyelids flickered again, this time for a little longer while his eyes adapted to the light. At last, he opened his eyes and stared at the stranger standing in front of him.

  Who was this man?

  ‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’

  Ricky breathed out, unable to answer.

  ‘Maybe you would if I spoke like this and told you a little more about my son, John. The shy kid.’ Effortlessly, the man’s voice transformed into the same voice he had used when he’d helped Ricky up from his bike fall. ‘Well, John doesn’t really exist.’ The man chuckled.

  Ricky’s eyes widened in surprise. The man standing in front of him also looked completely different. His goatee was gone. So was his wavy brown hair. In its place was a perfectly shaved head. The pale-blue eyes that had once showed concern were now of the deepest shade of brown, bordering on black.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, kid. Changing your appearance isn’t really that hard.’

  Ricky was still shivering.

  ‘So,’ the man said. ‘Let me ask again – what’s your name?’

  Ricky’s lips moved, but his voice failed him.

  ‘What was that? I didn’t hear you.’

  The man took a step forward. Ricky’s arms jerked toward his face to protect it. The man paused and waited, observing the boy.

  ‘Richard. My name is Richard Temple.’ The boy’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  ‘Umm.’ The man nodded as he scratched his chin, apparently missing his goatee. ‘But everyone calls you Ricky, right?’ His voice was back to being throaty and cold.

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Well, not anymore.’ The man sucked in a breath through his nose as if getting ready to spit. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. You were supposed to die here. I was supposed to do whatever I wanted with you and then kill you.’

  Tears began to roll down Ricky’s cheeks.

  ‘But I’ve decided that that’s not what I’m going to do. At least, not yet.’

  Ricky couldn’t tear his eyes from the man’s face.

  ‘Let me tell you this – life, as you knew it, is over, do you understand? You’ll never leave here. You’ll never have a friend again. Not that I think you had any. You’ll never go to school again, or play outside again, or see your family again, or do anything again other than obey me. Is that clear?’

  Fear kept Ricky from replying.

  ‘Is. That. Clear?’

  Ricky saw the man’s fingers close into a fist, and fear made him nod.

  ‘You’ll do everything I tell you to do. You’ll not open your mouth unless I give you permission to speak. You’ll only eat whatever is left over from my plate. If there’s nothing left over, you don’t eat. If you try to escape, I will know, and I will punish you. If you disobey any of my rules, I will know, and I will punish you. Do you understand?’

  The boy nodded again.

  ‘This is a new beginning for you,’ the man continued. ‘And since it’s a new beginning, you need a new name, because I don’t like yours.’ He wiped the back of his right hand across his lips, and for an instant the man looked like he was pondering something. ‘You know what you look like, all awkward and skinny?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘A squirm. You look like a squirm.’ A short pause. ‘I really like that.’ He smiled. ‘So that’s your new name – Squirm. Every time I call your name, you will answer “Yes, sir”. Do you understand, Squirm?’

  The boy didn’t know what to do other than look totally and utterly petrified.

  ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND, SQUIRM?’ The man’s yell reverberated against the brick walls like a death call.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ His voice was drowning in tears.

  The man smiled as he walked back to the cell door.

  ‘Welcome to your new life, Squirm. Welcome to hell.’

  The door closed behind him with a muffled thud like a coffin lid.

  Six

  Captain Blake waited while both detectives checked the file in their hands. It opened with an 11x8-inch colored portrait of a woman.

  ‘Her name was Nicole Wilson,’ the captain began, leaning back and sitting against the edge of her desk. ‘Twenty years old. She was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana, where her parents still live. About a year ago, after being accepted into law school at CSULA on a full academic scholarship, she moved here to Los Angeles. Her records show that she
was an outstanding student. For pocket money, and when her college schedule allowed her, she would sometimes babysit a few nights a week. This was supposed to be her first college summer break, but instead of going back to Indiana to see her folks, she decided to stay around because she managed to land a temp job, running errands for a small law firm in downtown LA. One of her professors helped her get the job.’

  Hunter and Garcia studied the opening photograph for a moment. Nicole Wilson had a round face, with expressive olive-shaped eyes complemented by a petite nose and full lips. Her cheeks were dusted with a handful of freckles, and her hair was light brown in color, coming down to the top of her shoulders.

  ‘Seven days ago,’ Captain Blake continued, as Hunter and Garcia moved past the opening photograph and on to the second page of the file – Nicole Wilson’s fact sheet – ‘Nicole was babysitting for Audrey and James Bennett, a wealthy couple who live in Upper Laurel Canyon, when she was abducted.’

  Hunter’s questioning gaze moved from the fact sheet to Captain Blake.

  ‘Yes,’ the captain confirmed, reading the unspoken question in her detective’s eyes. ‘She was abducted while she was babysitting, not on her way to work, or on her way back. The perpetrator took her from inside the house.’

  Hunter’s attention returned to the file. He flipped to the next page and skimmed through it. ‘No struggle?’

  ‘Forensics found no sign of it,’ Captain Blake replied, then paused for a second, observing both detectives before nodding once. ‘I know what you two are thinking – that the perpetrator was probably known to Nicole, and that she willingly allowed him into the house, hence the lack of evidence of a struggle. The same thought came to me when I first read that file, but no, that doesn’t seem to be the case here.’

  ‘How come?’ Garcia asked.

  Captain Blake shrugged and moved over to the espresso machine on the corner by the bookshelves. ‘Because the perpetrator tricked Nicole with a bogus story.’ She chose a coffee capsule and inserted it into the machine. This was her second cup since she’d arrived at her office less than half an hour ago.