The Crucifix Killer
Chris Carter
To Samantha Johnson, for simply being everything.
Acknowledgements
Writing is always regarded as a solitary occupation, but I owe a great debt to several people who have generously given me their time and input, in so many areas.
My love and thanks to Samantha Johnson, the most giving and understanding person I know, and who tirelessly read and re-read the initial manuscript so many times, even I lost count.
Thank you also to Coral Chambers for the encouragement and for pointing me in the right direction and to Andrea McPhillips for the corrections and the chats.
My sincere thanks also goes to all the incredible people at Simon & Schuster UK who have done an outstanding job and to my phenomenal editors, Kate Lyall Grant in the UK and Pia Gotz and Sybille Uplegger in Germany, whose great input and valuable suggestions made the story and the characters in this thriller come alive.
Words can’t express how thankful I am to the most passionate, dedicated, thoughtful, determined and extraordinary agents any author could ever hope for – Darley Anderson and Camilla Bolton. I’m the lucky one.
To the fantastic team of extremely hard-working people at the Darley Anderson Literary Agency, my eternal gratitude.
One
Friday, August 3rd, 10:25 a.m.
‘Hello . . . Detective Hunter speaking.’
‘
Hunter froze, almost dropping his coffee cup. He knew that metallic voice very well. He knew when that voice called it meant only one thing – a new, mutilated dead body.
‘
Hunter’s eyes quickly searched the room in vain for Carlos Garcia.
‘Has anyone heard from Garcia this morning?’ he shouted across the office after pressing the mute button on his cell phone.
The other detectives exchanged silent, puzzled looks and Hunter knew the answer even before it came.
‘Not since yesterday,’ Detective Maurice said shaking his head.
Hunter pressed the mute button once again.
‘What have you done to him?’
‘
‘What have you done to him?’ Hunter demanded in a firm voice.
‘
Two
Hunter raced down the stairs of the old building in east LA in giant leaps. The deeper he went, the darker and hotter it got. His shirt was covered in sweat, his tight shoes crushing his feet.
‘Where the hell is this laundry room?’ he whispered as he reached the basement.
A glimmer of light was coming from underneath a closed door at the end of a dark corridor. He ran towards it calling his partner’s name.
No answer.
Hunter pulled out his Wildey Survivor double-action pistol and positioned his back against the wall to the right of the door.
‘Garcia . . .’
Silence.
‘Rookie, are you in there?’
A muffled thud came from inside the room. Hunter cocked his gun and took a deep breath.
‘Fuck it!’
With his back still against the outside wall, he pushed the door open with his right hand and in a well- rehearsed move rotated his body into the room, his gun searching for a target. An unbearable smell of urine and vomit forced him to take a step back coughing violently.
‘Garcia . . .’ he called again from the door.
Silence.
From outside Hunter couldn’t see much. The light bulb that hung from the ceiling above a small wooden table in the center of the room was too weak to illuminate it properly. He drew another deep breath and took a step forward. What he saw made his stomach churn. Garcia had been nailed to a life-size cross inside a Perspex cage. The heavy bleeding from his wounds had created a pool of blood at the base of the cross. He was wearing nothing but his underwear and a barbed-wire crown around his head, the thick metal spikes clearly piercing his flesh. Blood streaking down his face. Garcia looked lifeless.
I’m too late, Hunter thought.
Approaching the cage he was surprised to see a heart monitor inside it. Its line peaking slightly and at steady intervals. Garcia was still alive – just.
‘Carlos!’
No movement.
