Surprisingly, the double swing doors at the bottom of the staircase weren’t locked. Hunter and Garcia pushed them open and stepped inside.
The first room was an old-style reception lobby. A battered semicircular counter was fixed to the wall on the left. Broken furniture was scattered around everywhere, covered in dust and old rags. Beyond the reception counter there was another set of swing doors.
‘I don’t like this one bit,’ Garcia whispered. ‘There’s something just not right about this place.’
Hunter looked around slowly. He still could see no surveillance cameras or any other type of security against intruders. He nodded at Garcia and they both carefully approached the new set of doors.
Hunter tried the handles — unlocked. They moved through.
The doors led them into a wide corridor, stretching for about thirty-five feet. One single dim light bulb kept it from plunging into total darkness. From where they were standing they could see only one door, halfway down the corridor.
‘OK, I’m not one to believe in vibes, or auras, or crap like that,’ Garcia said, ‘but there’s definitely something fucked-up about this place. I can feel it in my soul.’
They kept moving stealthily forward until they reached the lonely door on their left. Again — unlocked. They moved inside.
The room was about twenty-five feet by twenty, and was kitted out like a carpenter’s workshop. A large wooden drawing desk, a heavy-duty workstation counter, two old metal filing cabinets, wall-mounted shelves, and a paraphernalia of instruments and tools hanging from the walls and scattered around the room.
Hunter and Garcia stood still for a moment, taking everything in. When they finally approached the drawing desk, they froze.
‘Holy shit,’ Garcia whispered. His eyes settled on the building plans and the photographs on the desk. They showed one item only. An object they’d seen before. The fan-out knife that was retrieved from inside Kelly Jensen’s body.
Across the room, Hunter recognized the items inside a small box on top of the workstation — the self- activating clicking mechanism. There were three of them, ready to be used. Next to them he found another box with two aluminum tubes. Hunter and Garcia didn’t need to look at them closely to know exactly what they were — practice runs for the flare that was inserted into Jessica Black’s body. This was his creative chamber of horrors, Hunter thought. His death factory.
‘Look at this,’ Garcia said, checking some of the other drawings on the desk. ‘Plans for the bomb used on Laura Mitchell.’
An uneasy silence followed.
Garcia allowed his eyes to roam the room one more time. ‘He can build almost any sort of torture and death instrument in here.’
Hunter’s eyes were also rechecking the room — ceiling, corners, strategic places. . Still he could see no surveillance of any kind.
‘Here we are!’ Garcia said, reaching for a sheet of paper he found stuck to the wall.
‘What have you got?’
‘Looks like the underground floor plan for this place.’
Hunter moved closer and studied the drawing. The corridor they were in led into a new, transversal hallway. That hallway went around in a large squared path. Four corridors, and according to the plans they were looking at, each corridor held two rooms. There was no other exit on the other side. The only way out was to come back to where they were and go up the stairs they’d come down from.
Garcia felt his blood run cold. ‘Eight rooms. He can keep up to eight victims here at once?’
Hunter nodded. ‘It seems that way.’
‘Fuck. This guy is sick.’
Hunter paused and turned around. He had noticed something hanging from the wall before, but he didn’t pick up on it. A large metal key ring with several skeleton keys.
‘I bet these open the rooms.’
Garcia nodded. ‘Let’s go give them a try.’
They stepped out of the drawing room and, as quickly and quietly as they could, moved onto the transversal hallway at the end of the corridor they were in. They came out exactly at the center of the hallway. In total, this corridor stretched for sixty or seventy feet. Just like the previous one, a single dim light bulb behind a metal mesh on the wall kept it from total darkness.
‘So, what would you like to do?’ Garcia asked. ‘Split up or go together?’
‘Let’s give ourselves a better chance and move together. That way we can cover each other.’
Garcia nodded. ‘Good call. Which way?’
Hunter pointed right.
Once again they moved in almost complete silence. They quickly got to the first room towards the end of the corridor. A very sturdy and thick timber door. At the bottom of it there was a food hatch. Hunter fumbled through the keys in the large key ring, trying each one. He found the correct key on his third attempt.
Hunter gave Garcia a quick nod, who responded in the same way. They were as ready as they’d ever be.
Both detectives held their breath as Hunter stood with his back against the wall to the right of the door and pushed it open in one fast movement. Immediately, Garcia stepped inside, both of his arms stretched out, his weapon held by a double-hand grip. He was followed a fraction of a second later by Hunter.
The room was in complete darkness, but the tiny amount of light that seeped through from the corridor outside allowed them to understand its setup. It was small, maybe only ten feet in depth by seven wide. There was a metal bed pushed up against one of the walls and a bucket on the floor to the right of the bed; nothing else. The walls were made of red bricks and the floor was concrete. It looked like a medieval dungeon, and if fear had a smell, that room was drenched in it. There was no one in there.
Garcia breathed out and cringed. ‘Damn, look at this place, man. Stephen King couldn’t have imagined this hellhole.’
Hunter closed the door silently and he and Garcia moved on. The corridor swung left. Hunter went through the same process, trying each key as he reached the first door in this new hallway. The room was identical to the first one and again in total darkness. There was no one in there either.
Garcia started fidgeting.
They reached the next door and the process started again. As Hunter pushed the door open and they stepped inside with their weapons at the ready, they heard a faint and frightened cry.
One Hundred and Ten
Hunter and Garcia paused by the door. Both of their guns aiming at whoever or whatever had made that noise, but neither of them fired. Due to the darkness, it took Hunter a couple of seconds to spot her. She was pressed against one of the corners of the room, curled up into a tiny ball. Her knees were tight against her chest. Her arms hugging her legs so hard the blood seemed to have drained from them. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the door and the two new arrivals. One word could describe her whole being — fear.
Hunter recognized her straight away — Katia Kudrov.
He holstered his gun and quickly lifted his hands up in a surrender gesture.
‘We’re Los Angeles police officers,’ he announced in the calmest voice he could muster. ‘We’ve been looking for you for a while, Katia.’
Katia burst into tears, her body convulsing with emotion. Hunter stepped into the room and approached her very slowly.
‘You’re gonna be OK, we’re here now.’
Her eyes were still wide, staring at Hunter as if he was an illusion. Her breathing was coming to her in bursts.
