‘I remember that group of girls,’ Mr. Davis said with a melancholic grin. ‘They were always together, and all the boys—’ he shook his head and the grin widened as he remembered ‘—they were crazy for them. But these girls, they didn’t wanna know.’
‘What do you mean? Didn’t they have boyfriends?’
‘Oh yeah, but if my memory serves me right, they weren’t boys from this school. They were older, I think.’
‘Do you remember any of these girls’ names?’
Mr. Davis laughed. ‘My memory is good, detective, but not that good.’
Garcia nodded and returned his attention to the picture. ‘No way,’ he murmured after a few seconds, squinting at the photograph.
‘What? Something the matter?’ Mr. Davis asked, craning his neck.
‘Do you have a magnifying glass or something like that?’ Garcia asked without taking his eyes off the picture.
The old man smiled and pulled an old-fashioned Swiss army knife from his belt. It contained everything, from pliers to a screwdriver, a bottle opener and a small magnifying lens. ‘I knew this would come in handy someday.’ He handed it to Garcia, who quickly brought it to his eye, scrutinizing the picture for what seemed like an eternity. His mouth went dry.
‘I’ll be goddamned.’
Eighty-One
They drove down Yukon Avenue and turned left into Artesia Boulevard. Darnell Douglas was at the wheel. Ryan Turner sat comfortably in the passenger’s seat, his eyes studying the car’s interior.
‘It feels like a very smooth ride,’ Ryan said casually.
‘Oh, it is. This is a V8, 6.2-liter engine as smooth as aged whiskey.’ Darnell’s eyes stole a peek at Ryan. ‘Do you drink, Ryan?’
‘I occasionally enjoy a good whiskey, yeah.’
‘Oh, you’ll enjoy this more, believe me.’
‘I’m sure.’
Darnell knew it was time to play the cool salesman. ‘I’ll tell you what, Ryan.’ He pulled over to the side of the road. ‘I’m not supposed to do this, because we haven’t properly filled in a form back at the office, but you need to drive this puppy to really get a feel for it.’
Ryan’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
The ‘nice salesman who breaks the rules’ routine always worked for Darnell. It was a buddy-bonding thing. Give and take trust.
‘We can hook onto San Diego Freeway and you can let it rip for a while.’
‘You sure?’ Ryan looked uncertain.
‘Yeah, why not? You look like a pretty decent and responsible guy. I think I can trust you.’
Ryan held Darnell’s gaze for a few seconds.
‘Seriously, if this car doesn’t blow your mind, no car will.’
‘OK.’ Ryan nodded before unlocking the passenger’s door and walking the longest way around, buying himself a few seconds.
‘
‘So what do you do, Ryan?’ he asked as Ryan took his seat behind the wheel.
‘I’m a doctor.’ He buckled up.
‘Wow.’
‘I’m an anesthetist.’
‘Ooh.’ Darnell shook his whole body in a shiver.
‘Something wrong?’
Darnell made a bitter face. ‘I really don’t like needles, you know? They freak the fuck out of me.’
Ryan’s hand wrapped around the syringe in his pocket and he smiled.
‘Yeah . . .’ He stared into Darnell’s eyes. His voice guttural. ‘I already knew that.’
They say that when it comes to danger and fear, human beings are just like any other animal. We can sense it. Some primitive instinct inside alerts us. And something inside Darnell was screaming for him to get the hell out of that car.
Ryan pressed the central locking button and smiled. ‘Guess what?’ he whispered. ‘I know what scares you to death.’
Eighty-Two
In Compton High, Hunter got his hands on a 1985 students’ yearbook – Father Fabian’s graduating year. He also managed to dig up some of his old report cards and records. The young priest had been suspended seven times during his junior year. The interesting fact was that all seven suspensions had been requested by the same teacher – Mrs. Patricia Reed, who taught algebra 2, the priest’s weakest subject, according to his grades. Teachers tend to remember their worst students better than their best ones. If anybody would remember Brett Stewart Nichols, Patricia Reed would, Hunter was certain of that.
The day was sliding from pale blue to dark night when Hunter walked into his office. Garcia had arrived only a couple of minutes before him and was standing in front of the picture board, attentively studying one of the photos. He turned and faced Hunter.
‘You won’t believe what I found.’ Excitement coated his words as he wiggled a six by twelve photo in his hand.
Hunter arched an eyebrow and took a few steps towards his partner.
‘I got this from an old storage room in Gardena High.’ He handed Hunter the photo.
‘Storage room?’
Garcia quickly summarized his day at Gardena High before stabbing at the picture with his index finger. ‘Second girl from the left.’
Hunter studied the girl Garcia had indicated. It didn’t take him long. ‘Amanda Reilly,’ he said confidently.
‘That’s right.’ Garcia retrieved an old-fashioned, Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass from his desk and handed it to Hunter. ‘But that’s not all. Take a look at the last girl on the right, the one who has a sort of amused look on her face.’
Hunter analyzed the picture once again, this time for a while longer. There was nothing peculiar about the girl, and he was about to ask Garcia ‘What about her?’ when he saw it and stopped.
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘Looks familiar?’ Garcia said, arching his eyebrows.
Hunter turned to the picture board and unpinned the woman’s photo they’d found on the fireplace inside the Malibu mansion. The one with the number two written on the back. He brought it back to his desk and sat it next to the schoolgirls’ photo. His eyes jumped from one picture to the other several times before he looked at Garcia. ‘It’s her.’
Garcia nodded slowly. ‘That’s what I thought, but I didn’t have that photo with me.’ He pointed to the woman’s picture on Hunter’s desk. ‘I needed to come back here to confirm it. Now I’m positive. They went to the same school, Robert. Amanda and the alleged second victim hung out together.’
‘What’s her name? Who is she?’
‘That, I still don’t know.’
‘Did you get a yearbook?’
Garcia told him about the stolen yearbooks and the burned down printer. ‘The school might have a graduating
