lawyer who helped him set up his book business, Denise, at the age of twenty. Laura was the younger of their two children.
Kelly, on the other hand, had had a pretty unadventurous life. Born into a small, church-going family in Montana, she was destined to become just another Treasure State housewife, tending to her husband, kids and garden. Her arts schoolteacher recognized her talent when it came to painting, and for years kept on telling her that she shouldn’t walk away from her gift.
Katia came from the richest of all three families, but she never took anything for granted. She became a violinist of her own accord, and no matter how much money her family had, talent and dedication can’t be bought. Everything she’d achieved, she did it through her own hard work.
Hunter put the report down and stretched his arms high above his head. From his small bar, he poured another double dose of single malt. He needed something comforting and rich on the palate this time. His eyes rested on the bottle of Balblair 1997 and his mind was made. He dropped a single cube of ice in his glass and heard it crack as the dense, honey-colored liquid hit it. He brought the glass to his nose and breathed in the sweet, vanilla oak vapors for a moment. He took a small sip, allowing the alcohol to reach every corner of his mouth before swallowing it. If heaven had a taste, this would be pretty close to it.
Hunter stared out his window at a city that he had never really understood, and that was getting crazier and crazier by the day. How could anyone understand the madness that went around in this town?
A thin sheet of rain had started falling. Hunter’s gaze dropped to the files and photographs scattered on his coffee table. Laura and Kelly stared back at him with terrified pleading eyes, their ragdoll smiles grotesquely outlined by rough stitches and black thread.
Hunter frowned as his eyes first shot towards his front room door and then quickly to his watch. Way too late for visitors. Besides, he couldn’t even remember the last time someone knocked on his door.
Seventy-Two
Hunter put down his glass, grabbed his gun from his holster, which was hanging from the back of a chair, and approached his front door. There was no peephole. Hunter hated them: they provided any assailant with a very easy kill shot. Just wait until the lens darkens and put a bullet through it. Training and instinct told him to stay to the right of the doorframe, out of reach of the door swing. That would avoid him being slammed in the face if anyone kicked the door in as he unlocked it. It would also put Hunter out of the direct blast path of a powerful weapon, should anyone be waiting to blow a hole through the door.
He undid the main lock and pulled the door back, letting it rest, fractionally open, on the security chain. From the outside, only part of his face was visible through the gap.
‘Expecting the bad guys?’ Whitney Myers asked with an amused grin.
She was wearing a cropped, black leather biker’s jacket with an AC/DC T-shirt underneath. Her blue jeans were faded and torn at her left knee, a look that was perfectly complemented by her silver-tip cowboy boots. Hunter looked her up and down. He was not amused.
‘Are you gonna invite me in or shoot me with that gun you’re holding behind your back?’
Hunter closed the door, undid the security chain and pulled it back open again. He was also wearing faded jeans — though his weren’t torn — but not much else.
It was Myers’ turn to look him up and down. ‘Well, somebody is a gym bunny.’ Her eyes paused at the tight muscles of his abdomen before slowly moving up to his chest, making sure she grabbed a good look of his biceps, and then finally back to his face.
‘Did you get lost on your way to a rock gig or something?’ He stood on the doorway, his gun still in his right hand. ‘What in the world are you doing here. . and at this time of night?’
As her gaze moved past Hunter and into his apartment, Myers’ expression changed. ‘I’m sorry. . are you. . with someone?’
Hunter allowed the embarrassing moment to stretch for a couple of seconds before shaking his head.
‘No.’
He stepped back and fully opened the door, giving her a silent invitation.
Hunter’s front room was oddly shaped, with furniture that looked to have belonged to the Salvation Army. There were four mismatched chairs around a square, wooden table that he used as his computer desk. A laptop, together with a printer and a small table lamp were crammed onto it. A few feet away from the far wall was a beaten-up black sofa. The coffee table in front it was overflowing with pictures and police reports. Across the room Myers saw a glass bar with an impressive collection of single malt Scotch.
‘I can see you’re not a man who cares for extravagant decoration.’
Hunter gathered the pictures and papers from the coffee table into a pile and moved them out of the way. He reached for a white T-shirt that was on the back of one of the chairs and put it on.
Myers looked away, hiding her disappointment. She approached the dark wood sideboard to the right of the glass bar where a few lonely picture frames were arranged. Two of the photographs were black and white and looked to be old. Both were of the same smiling couple. Hunter looked like his father, but he had his mother’s understanding eyes, Myers noted. Most of the other photographs showed Hunter and another man, heavier and about two inches taller. From Myers’ research she knew he was Hunter’s old RHD partner, Scott Wilson, who’d died in a boat accident a few years ago. Two other photographs showed Hunter receiving commendations from the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Governor of California. The last picture, the one hiding right at the back was of a younger-looking Hunter dressed in a graduation gown and holding a university diploma. He looked like he’d just conquered the world. His father was proudly standing by his side. His smile could’ve brightened a dark day.
With his arms folded, Hunter stood by the window, waiting.
Myers’ eyes moved from the pictures to the glass bar and the neatly arranged bottles. ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’
‘If you promise to tell me why you’re here, sure, go right ahead.’
She poured herself a double dose of Balblair 1997 and dropped a single cube of ice in it.
Hunter’s face remained impartial but he was impressed. ‘Good choice.’
Myers had a sip of her drink. ‘Do you have a CD player?’
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why? Are you suddenly in the mood for some
She smiled and her gaze moved momentarily down to her shirt. ‘That
Seventy-Three
The rain was coming down a little harder now, drumming against the window just behind Hunter. The wind had also picked up.
‘Give me a sec,’ he said before disappearing down a small corridor. Moments later he returned with a portable stereo system.
‘I found this on the Internet, almost by chance,’ Myers said as Hunter cleared the table, placed the stereo on it and plugged it in.
‘What is it?’
‘An interview.’
Hunter paused and looked up. ‘With Katia?’
