Silence.
Realization came seconds later.
‘Sonofabitch! Both of the victims remind him of someone else,’ Garcia finally caught on. ‘Someone he loved. That’s why they look so alike.’
Hunter nodded. ‘It’s not them he wants. It’s who they remind him of.’ He watched the convertible BMW pull away. ‘The lack of bruising prior to the stitching on both victims has been bothering me from the start. I kept thinking: since he doesn’t kidnap them for ransom, there’s gotta be a reason why he keeps them instead of killing them straight away, but more importantly, there’s gotta be a reason why he never touches them until the last minute. It didn’t make any sense. No matter which path I followed, I couldn’t see how there’d be no bruising. If the killer was keeping these women to satisfy his sexual needs, there’d be bruising. . For revenge, there’d be bruising. . Generalized hate against women, or even brunette painters induced by some past trauma, there’d be bruising. . If he were an obsessed fan, there’d be bruising. . Sadistic paranoia, there’d be bruising. . Pure homicidal mania, there’d be bruising. . Nothing fitted.’
Garcia raised his eyebrows.
‘I heard it first a few days ago, when we were interviewing Patrick Barlett, but I guess it just got filed away in my subconscious.’
‘Patrick Barlett?’ Garcia frowned. ‘Laura Mitchell’s ex-fiance?’
Hunter nodded as he watched the traffic flow. A black woman driving a white Peugeot to their right was shaking her head and gesticulating while apparently singing along to something. She noticed Hunter looking at her and smiled, embarrassed. He smiled back before continuing.
‘Patrick said that he’d never hurt Laura, no matter what. He loved her too much.’
‘Yeah, I remember that.’
‘Unfortunately, that day I was more worried about observing Patrick’s reactions than anything else. It just escaped me. But it happens more often than you think. It’s a spin-off of the combination of two conditions known as
Garcia frowned.
‘Some husbands look for prostitutes that remind them of their own wives,’ Hunter explained. ‘Some people look for girlfriends or boyfriends that look like an old high-school sweetheart or a teacher, or even their own mothers or fathers.’
Garcia thought back to a childhood school friend who, in fourth grade, had fallen in love with his history teacher. When he was old enough to date, every girlfriend he had was the spitting image of that teacher, including the one he’d gone on to marry years later.
‘Anyway,’ Hunter moved on, ‘it wasn’t until a moment ago that the idea of resembling someone paired up with transference and projection came into my head.’
‘Shit!’ Garcia let out a slow breath through clenched teeth, the confusion finally starting to clear in his mind. ‘When he looks at the women he’s abducted, his mind sees someone else, because he
A quick nod from Hunter. ‘That’s the projection side.’
‘But wait a second.’ Garcia shook his head. ‘He still kills them. . very brutally. Doesn’t that go against this theory?’
‘No, it strengthens it. The stronger the transference and projection, the easier it is for the killer to be disappointed. They might have the same looks as the person he wants them to be, but they won’t act, or talk, or do anything else in the same way. No matter how much he wants it, they’ll never be who he wished they were.’
Garcia thought about it for a beat. ‘And as soon as he realizes that, why keep them, right?’
‘That’s right. But he still can’t bring himself to kill them directly. That’s why they’re still alive when he leaves them. That’s why he’s not even there when they are supposed to die. He can’t bear to see them go. And that’s why he created the self-activating trigger mechanism.’
‘So he doesn’t have to be there.’
‘Exactly,’ Hunter agreed.
Garcia remained thoughtful. ‘So this true love of his, is she dead?’
‘Most probably,’ Hunter admitted. ‘And that might be why he cracked. His mind just can’t let go of her.’
Garcia puffed his cheeks out before letting them deflate slowly. ‘Do you think she died in the same way his victims died, stitched up? Do you think he killed her as well?’
Hunter stared out the window at a cloudless, baby blue sky, and wished his thoughts were just as clear. ‘There’s only one way we can find out.’
He reached for his phone.
Sixty-Four
The Los Angeles branch of the A & E TV network was located in Century City. It occupied fifteen offices on the ninth floor of building two of the famous Twin Century Plaza Towers. It was no coincidence that the buildings resembled the twin towers that were destroyed in 2001 during the terrorist attack in Manhattan’s World Trade Center. They’d been designed by the same architect.
The red-haired woman behind the reception counter at the A & E TV network entry lobby was what you’d call striking rather than pretty.
She smiled politely as Hunter and Garcia approached the counter before lifting her index finger to signal that she’d only be a moment.
Seconds later she touched her earpiece and a blinking blue light went off.
‘How can I help you, gentlemen?’ Her gaze bounced between both detectives and settled on Hunter. Her smile gained an extra twinkle. He explained that they needed to talk to someone about an old documentary their studio had produced. The receptionist glanced at their badges and her demeanor changed. A quick internal call and two minutes later they were being shown into an office at the end of a long corridor. The placard on the door read Bryan Coleman — Director of Production.
The man sitting behind the desk smiled as Hunter and Garcia appeared at his door. He too had a hands-free earpiece on. The blue light was blinking. He motioned both detectives inside, stood up and moved to the front of his desk. He was at least two inches taller than Hunter, with close-cropped dark hair and piercing brown eyes set closely together behind horn-rimmed glasses.
Hunter closed the door behind him and waited. The two chairs in front of Coleman’s desk were occupied by boxes. Both detectives stood.
‘We need to get that redelivered today. .’ Coleman said into the hands-free while nodding at Hunter and Garcia. He listened for only half a second before cutting off whomever he was speaking to. ‘Listen, if we don’t get it redelivered today, we’re gonna get our account transferred to a different company, do you get me?’ Another pause. ‘Yeah, this afternoon is fine, before three o’clock even better. . I’ll be waiting.’ He removed the hands-free from his right ear and threw it on his desk.
‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ Coleman said, shaking both detectives’ hands before clearing the boxes off the two seats. ‘We’re expanding. We were supposed to be moving premises, but a few months ago the company across the hall from us went bust.’ He shrugged indifferently. ‘Recession, you know? So we decided to take their offices instead. It’s easier, but no less stressful.’ He pointed to the phone on his desk. ‘Delivery companies are slick little bastards. If you let them, they’ll walk all over you.’
Hunter and Garcia nodded politely.
‘So?’ Coleman clapped his hands together. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘We’re looking for a documentary about West Coast artists that was produced by your network,’ Hunter said, taking a seat.
‘Do you know the name of this documentary?’
Hunter checked his notebook. ‘Yes, it’s called
