One by One (26 page)

No reply.

‘Do you remember it, Detective Hunter?’

‘Yes.’

‘But the truth is that you aren’t even close to getting to me, are you?’

Silence.

‘Meanwhile, as you can see,
I
can get to people close to you, and if I so see fit, take them away from your lives. It’s my choice, not yours, or theirs. I can even get to you if I want to. I can be anywhere, and everywhere. But all you have are empty threats.’

‘It’s not a threat, you sack o’ shit.’ Garcia’s voice was still trembling with rage. ‘It’s a
promise.
If you touch her, nothing else matters. Not even the law will matter. There isn’t a hole under a rock on this earth that will be safe for you to hide in. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I do,’ the caller said, as calm as a priest in a confessionary. ‘Would it make a difference if I took your wife’s friend instead?’

Hunter and Garcia tensed once again.

The caller didn’t wait for an answer. ‘But of course it would. Then it wouldn’t be personal, and your reaction wouldn’t have been the same, isn’t that right, Detective Garcia? As you said, when it’s someone close to us, nothing else matters. We will even forget who we are. Maybe even become a monster in the process.’ The caller let out a heavy breath, and for the first time his voice got a little harsher. ‘You know, most people believe that we, as humans, always have a choice, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. Well, I’d like to contest that theory. I’d like to suggest that we don’t
always
have a choice. Sometimes choices are made for us by others, and there’s nothing we,
as humans
, can do about it, except react. For example, if I decide to take your wife from you right now, Detective Garcia,
my choice
, not yours, will change
your
life forever.’

Garcia didn’t know what to say.

‘But anger and emotional pain are good things,’ the caller moved on after a silent moment. ‘They show that we’re still alive. That we still care. That other people still matter to us. Is my psychology correct, Detective Hunter?’

Hunter looked deep in thought for a split second. ‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘You should be proud, Detective Garcia, you did well. I like your reaction. A reaction of a man who cares.’ The caller chuckled. ‘Well, I guess my work here is done. But we’ll be talking again soon –
that
is a promise.’

The line went dead.

The images disappeared from their computer screens.

The website went offline.

Sixty-One

Silence ruled the room for only a couple of seconds before Hunter turned to Garcia.

‘Call Anna,’ he said. ‘Find out where she is. Tell her to find a busy place, like a coffee shop, and stay there until we get there.’

Garcia looked at Hunter as if he were from outer space. ‘Are you kidding? You heard what he said, right? If he saw Anna reaching for her phone . . .’ He wasn’t able to finish the sentence.

‘He’s not going to do anything, Carlos,’ Hunter said. ‘It was a bluff. He wanted to get a reaction.’

‘What?’

‘It was a bluff. Trust me. There were signs all throughout his telephone conversation with you. I’ll explain in the car. Right now you need to get Anna on the phone and find out where she is so we can get to her.’ Hunter had already grabbed his jacket. ‘Let’s move.’ He dashed for the door. ‘Call her.’

‘Woah, hold the fuck on, Robert,’ Garcia said in an unsteady voice, lifting his hands. ‘We’ve been partners for over five years. There’s no one alive I trust more than you, you know that, but we’re talking about the sickest, most sadistic and psychopathic killer this department has ever faced, and at this precise moment he’s following my
wife.
As he said, we can’t get there in time, even if we knew where she was. If I make this call and you’re wrong, he’ll take her, you know he will.’

Hunter paused by the door and faced his partner. ‘I’m not wrong, Carlos. He will
not
take Anna.’ Hunter’s conviction was absolute, Garcia could see that, but still he didn’t move.

Hunter checked his watch. He wanted to gain time, but right now they were doing exactly the opposite. ‘Carlos, whatever agenda this killer has, Anna just doesn’t fit in.’

‘How so?’

‘OK, one possibility we’re facing is that the killer picks his victims at random from the general public, right? Well, if that really is the case, Anna isn’t a random pick. She’s your wife, and he knows it. There’s no random factor there, which, in that case, would be a detachment from his MO. If he’s after his victims for some other reason, like revenge or something else, again, I can’t see how Anna would fit.’

Garcia scratched his chin.

‘He went after Anna for one reason, and one reason only.’

‘Because she’s my wife.’

‘Exactly. He did it to get under our skin. To prove a point. Not to satisfy whatever agenda he has.’

‘And what point would that be? That he can get to anyone he wants? That he can hurt us?’

‘That too,’ Hunter agreed. ‘And to stamp his superiority. To remind us who is in control of this game.
He is
, not us, and he can change the rules anytime he wants, just like he did with the Internet broadcasting and the online voting. But there were other things he said that hinted at something else.’

Garcia frowned. ‘Like what?’

‘He talked about how personal your reaction was. He wanted you to lose control. He wanted you to allow your emotions to take over, and for you to feed on them. He wanted you to forget who you are, who you’ve always been . . . and you did just that.’

Garcia knew Hunter wasn’t being critical of his actions. ‘I wasn’t bullshitting, Robert. If he touches Anna, I will find him, I will make him suffer, and then I will kill him. I don’t care what happens to me.’

‘I understand. And I don’t blame you. But when you told him that if he ever harmed Anna, nothing else would matter, not even the law, not even the fact that you were a cop. When you told him that you would hunt him down until you find him, and that you would kill him, no matter what, no matter how long it took . . . it didn’t scare him. It
pleased
him.’

‘What?’

‘It pleased him,’ Hunter repeated. ‘He even congratulated you, remember? His words were –
You did well, Detective Garcia. I like your reaction. A reaction of a man who cares.
But you didn’t do anything other than threaten him with death. So what was he so pleased about, and why?’

‘Because he’s a fucking psycho?’ Garcia was still feeding on his emotions.

‘No. It was because you gave him his little victory.’

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

Hunter’s eyes peeked at his watch again. ‘As I said, he had no real interest in Anna. He only went after her to get under our skin and to prove a point. And he knew he could do that without the need to touch her. Your reaction told him that he’d more than accomplished his task. You gave him more than a small victory, Carlos. You equated yourself with him when you told him that you would act just like him.’

‘What?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘I don’t remember his exact words. We can play the recording back later, but he said that when a threat or harm comes to someone close to us, nothing else matters.
We
will even forget who we are. We may even act like monsters. We’ll do anything to protect those we love. Your reaction proved that . . . And it pleased him.’

Garcia said nothing.

‘One of the last things he said before disconnecting,’ Hunter continued. ‘Was that his work there was done . . . as in
finished
, nothing left to do. He got what he wanted. Anna is of no interest to him anymore.’

Garcia still remained silent.

‘He also talked about people not always having a choice,’ Hunter said.

Garcia nodded. ‘I remember that. He said that sometimes choices are made for us by others, and there’s nothing we can do about it. He gave Anna as an example.’

‘No, not nothing,’ Hunter countered. ‘He said that we can
react.
That’s what you did. And I think that’s exactly what he’s doing.’

Things started to frantically move around in Garcia’s head, searching for the right place to slot in. ‘You think something happened to someone close to him? That’s why he’s going around torturing and killing people? He’s reacting?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter replied. ‘Right now we can only speculate. But in the past, every time he called us, he was always calm, never excited, never angry, never remorseful . . . never nothing. His tone of voice never gave anything away . . . no emotion. But not today.’

Garcia had been too angry and scared for Anna’s life to notice.

‘Today, for the first time, anger crept into his tone when he talked about people not always having a choice. He said that anger and emotional pain were good things. It proved that we, as humans, are still alive inside. That we still care for something. He used Anna and your love for her to prove that.’

Silence.

‘He wasn’t talking about me and my anger,’ Garcia finally said. ‘Or my reaction to what I would do if Anna was ever harmed. He was talking about him and his anger. He was talking about his reaction.’

Hunter nodded and looked at his watch for the third time. ‘Carlos, look, I understand that I’m asking you to trust me with your wife’s life, and that is asking a hell of a lot, but if you still don’t want to trust me, trust yourself. Forget about everything I think I picked up throughout your conversation with the killer. Take a step back and do what
you
know how to do – analyze the whole scenario. Analyze the facts. Right now Anna is walking down a busy street, and she isn’t alone, which means that as long as she stays on that busy street, the killer can’t approach her without grabbing her friend’s attention as well. That means that he can’t drag Anna away from that street without either neutralizing her friend or taking her with them. Abducting one adult from a busy street without alerting anyone else is already a very hard task. Abducting two without causing a commotion is almost impossible. Even if he wanted to take them both, which I’m sure he doesn’t, he would still have to wait for the right moment to do it, and that moment won’t come while they’re out in the open, in the middle of a crowd, or in a busy place, like a café. This killer is bold, but he isn’t stupid. Now you’ve got two options, Carlos. You either make that call and we get a move on, or you don’t, and we sit here, imagining the worst and wondering how long we should wait until you eventually call her to find out if the killer kept his word or not. It’s your
choice
.’

Sixty-Two

‘So . . .’ Patricia said matter-of-factly. A devilish smile curving the edge of her lips. ‘When are you going to properly introduce me to that detective, you know, Carlos’ partner?’

Anna stopped walking and looked at Patricia over the rim of her sunglasses.

‘What?’ Patricia said. The smile was still there, just a little bit more pronounced now. ‘Everyone knows he’s hot. And I know he isn’t hitched ’cos you told me.’

Patricia had met Hunter only once before, two months ago, during Anna’s birthday party. Hunter hadn’t stayed long. But after he left, Patricia had been one of three friends who’d asked Anna who the quiet good-looking guy was.

Someone riding a black and red Harley-Davidson motorbike turned the corner and decided to park it just a few yards ahead of them. For a moment no one could hear anything over the double-barrel exhaust noise.

When he finally switched his engine off, Anna faced Patricia again. ‘I thought you were seeing someone.’

They began walking again.

‘I was, but not anymore. Hence the request.’ She smiled again.

Anna gave her
the look.

‘He was just a fling. It lasted a few weeks, that’s all. Don’t worry about him.’ Patricia gave Anna a dismissive wave.

They both stepped onto the street to avoid zigzagging through the many tables set outside a bustling Italian pizzeria. Anna caught the smell of freshly baked pepperoni pizza coming from one of the tables, and her stomach rumbled. She quickly pushed her pace to avoid giving in to temptation.

Patricia followed.

‘Now,’ she said, catching Anna’s attention again. ‘Carlos’ partner, Robert, isn’t it?’

‘Are we still talking about this?’

‘Yes, we are. He’s not seeing anyone, is he?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

A renewed, suggestive smile from Patricia.

‘I can introduce you to him if you want,’ Anna finally said. ‘But don’t get your hopes up.’

Patricia looked hurt.

‘Oh no, it’s not you. Nothing to do with you. I know you could charm any man alive. I’ve seen it.’

The hurt look softened.

‘But Robert is just—’ Anna’s eyes wandered, searching for the right words ‘—unique, and a complete enigma. He’s a loner by choice, not because he’s a difficult person to get along with, far from it. He’s probably the easiest-going person I know. But he shies away from relationships as if they were a curse.’

‘Bad past experience?’ Patricia asked.

‘No one knows.’ Anna shrugged. ‘I’m telling you, he’s an enigma. He’ll talk to you about anything but his job or his personal life. I do think he had someone important in his life once, years ago, but he just won’t talk about it.’

‘So he doesn’t date?’

‘I never said that. I said that he doesn’t do
relationships.
He dates plenty.’

Patricia smiled. ‘There you go, then.’ A hip-hop swagger found its way onto her words. ‘Hook me up, sista.’ She smiled, but it didn’t sound like she was joking.

‘You want me to try to hook you up for a
one-night stand
with my husband’s work partner?’

‘Are you kidding? With that man I’ll take meaningless sex any day of the week, and twice on Sundays, thank you very much.’

Anna knew that Patricia was serious.

‘You are incorrigible.’

‘I know, but that’s what makes life fun.’

As Anna heard the ringtone of her cellphone come from inside her handbag, Patricia started eyeing a skimpy black dress with white details in the window of the trendy shop to their right.