‘Shit!’
She checked her car’s clock and cursed under her breath as she turned into her street in Toluca Lake, southeastern San Fernando Valley. She had no doubt she’d be late, and she hated being late.
The gala charity fundraising event was scheduled to start in seventy-five minutes’ time. The drive from her house alone would take her at least half an hour. That gave her around forty-five minutes to have a shower, do her hair and make-up and get dressed. For a woman who took as much pride in her appearance as she did, that was almost impossible.
Her secretary had reminded her in plenty of time, as she’d asked her to, but an accident on Hollywood Freeway cost her an extra thirty-five minutes, and in an event where the Mayor of Los Angeles, the Governor of California and quite a few A-list celebrities were supposed to be attending, being late wasn’t the best plan of action.
To save time, she decided that she’d have her hair up and tied back. She also had a pretty good idea of which dress and shoes she’d be wearing.
Her home was a large, two-story, cul-de-sac house by Toluca Lake itself. She knew the house was way too big for her alone, but she had fallen in love with it when she was first property searching.
She parked her Dodge Challenger on her paved driveway and her eyes involuntarily checked the dashboard clock again.
‘Shit, shit.’
She’d been so concerned with the time and being late that she didn’t even notice the white van parked on the street, almost directly in front of her house.
She stepped out of her car and fumbled inside her handbag for the key while walking to her front door. As she got to the porch, she heard a ruffling noise coming from the trimmed shrubs of her small front yard. She paused and frowned. A few seconds later the noise returned. It sounded like some sort of scratching.
‘Oh, please don’t tell me I’ve got rats,’ she whispered to herself.
Suddenly she heard a sniffing cry and a tiny white puppy stuck its head through the bushes. It looked frightened and hungry.
‘Oh my God.’ She crouched down, put her handbag on the floor and extended a hand. ‘Come here, little one. Don’t be scared.’ The puppy stepped further out of the bushes, sniffing at her hand.
‘Oh, you poor thing. I bet you’re hungry.’ She patted its head, running a hand up and down its white fur. It was shivering. ‘Would you like some milk?’
She did not hear him walk up behind her. In her crouched position it was easy for him to dominate her. His strong hands pushed her forward into the bushes where the white puppy had come from, while at the same time pressing a wet cloth over her mouth. She tried to react, dropping the puppy and desperately trying to reach behind her to grab hold of her assailant. But it was too late; he knew it, and so did she.
Within seconds, her world faded to black.
Ninety-Nine
Garcia went straight back to his desk in Parker Center and fired up his computer. He needed to search the Internet for online editions of art magazines and journals.
Two hours later he was starting to get a headache from squinting at the screen, and he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. His gaze returned to the copy of the music magazine he’d taken from Jessica Black’s apartment and a thought crept into his mind. He considered it for only a few seconds before grabbing his jacket and flying out the door once again.
Garcia wasn’t as familiar with the central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library as Hunter was, but he knew they kept a microfilm and database archive on all their magazines and journals. He just hoped their Arts department was as accomplished as Hunter said it was.
Garcia found a free workstation, sat himself down and started searching through articles. He searched for any piece about either Laura Mitchell or Kelly Jensen, especially one-to-one interviews.
It took him just under two and a half hours to find the first one — an interview with Kelly Jensen for
‘This is fucking crazy,’ he said, pressing the print button. He collected his printout and returned to his seat. Laura Mitchell was now his next target.
An hour later he got to the end of the list of all the Laura Mitchell interviews he’d found in the system — nothing.
‘Fuck!’ he cursed under his breath. His eyes were getting tired and watery. He needed a break, a cup of coffee and an Advil.
Suddenly a crazy thought came into his head and he paused for a moment, considering the alternatives.
‘Oh, what the hell,’ he whispered as he decided that it was worth a shot.
Garcia wouldn’t find a better collection of art magazines and articles on Laura Mitchell than the ones they’d uncovered inside the dark room in James Smith’s apartment. Smith seemed to have collected everything that was ever published on her. He was still under custody, and his apartment was still seized by police as part of an ongoing investigation.
Garcia stood by the door to the dimly lit collage room, staring at the magazines and newspapers piled just about everywhere.
‘Damn!’ he whispered to himself. ‘This is gonna take me forever.’
In fact, it took him two hours and three piles of magazines and journals. Laura Mitchell’s last interview had been with
He almost choked when he read the lines.
‘Sonofabitch.’
Every hair on his body stood on end. He knew that this kind of coincidence just didn’t exist.
As he rushed out of the building, his cell phone rang in his pocket. He checked the display window before answering it.
‘Robert, I was just about to call you. You’re not gonna believe what I just found out—’
‘Carlos, listen,’ Hunter interrupted urgently, ‘I think I know who we’re after.’
‘What? Really? Who?’
‘I have no doubt he doesn’t go by his real name any more, but his original name was Andrew Harper. I need you to get in touch with Operations and the research team immediately. We need everything and anything we can get on him.’
Garcia stopped walking and frowned at nothing. His memory searching for the name. ‘Wait a second,’ he remembered, ‘isn’t that the name of the kid Stephen told us about on the phone? The one who was murdered by his father?’
‘Yep, that’s him, and I don’t know how he got away, but I don’t think he was murdered that day.’
‘Come again?’
‘I think that somehow he survived. And I think he was in the house when it happened, Carlos.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you everything when I get back to LA. I’m at the airport now. I’ll land at LAX in about two hours. But I think the kid was hiding in the house.’
‘No way.’
‘He watched his father violate his mother’s body, stitch her shut, write a blood message on the wall and then kill her before blowing his own head off. .’
Garcia stayed silent.
‘I think the kid saw everything. And now he’s repeating history.’
