rest of her life.
‘I know you’re scared, Mollie. But running away isn’t the answer. It never is.’
‘It’s the only answer I have,’ she shot back. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s been like.’ Her voice urgent. ‘My father will never give up.’
‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Mollie,’ Hunter said in an even voice.
‘So don’t.’
Hunter regarded her. Her reaction had been generated by fear, not anger. The same fear that made her run away and kept her running. The same fear that seemed to fuel her existence.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.’
Mollie took a deep breath and looked down at her mug. A whole minute passed before Hunter spoke.
‘You sounded very worried on the phone, Mollie. Did something happen?’
‘I had another vision,’ she announced quickly and in a steady voice.
Hunter leaned forward.
‘After I saw my picture in the paper this morning I panicked. I wanted to run away again.’ She pointed to the rucksack at her feet. ‘I made it all the way to the Greyhound Bus Station.’
‘Where would you go?’
Mollie coughed a laugh. ‘Anywhere the little money I had could take me. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from here.’
‘And the vision changed your mind?’ Hunter asked.
Mollie nodded and started fidgeting with the teaspoon again. ‘It happened while I was at the station, trying to decide where to go.’
‘What did you see?’
Her eyes met his and Hunter saw fear.
‘The visions, since they came back, are very different from the ones I had when I was younger.’
‘You said they’re now in the first person and sometimes they aren’t silent anymore.’ Hunter nodded.
‘What I saw today wasn’t a person or a place or anything like that. It didn’t play like a film. But I know it was something very important to the killer.’
Hunter waited.
‘I saw a date.’
He craned his neck. ‘What date?’
Mollie took a deep breath and shuddered. ‘New Year’s Day.’
Eighty-Seven
Garcia picked Hunter up at 7:00 a.m.
After a marathon of phone calls the night before, Mrs. Adams, Gardena High School’s librarian, had agreed to meet them at the school at 7:30.
‘I found Mollie,’ Hunter said as Garcia joined Hollywood Freeway heading northwest.
The statement caught Garcia by surprise, and he glanced at Hunter. ‘What, really? How?’
‘Actually, she found me. She called me last night.’
‘What did she say? Where is she?’
‘It took some convincing, but I booked her a room at the Travel Inn just a few blocks from my apartment.’
‘You booked her a room? Is she OK?’ Garcia asked, concerned.
‘She’s scared. She was about to run away.’
‘Where to?’
Hunter tilted his head. ‘Anywhere but here.’
Garcia thought about it for a moment. ‘Because of the newspaper article?’
Hunter nodded. ‘She told me a little bit more about herself last night. She was abused in every possible way. She’s terrified her father will find her.’
‘How can you guarantee she won’t run away from us again?’
‘I can’t. But I’m earning her trust.’
Garcia knew no one who inspired trust more than Hunter.
‘I gave her a prepaid cell phone. Our numbers are programmed in and it’s equipped with GPS. I told her never to turn it off.’
They hit heavy traffic as they merged into Harbor Freeway.
‘She had another vision.’
Garcia stared at Hunter in anticipation. ‘A new victim?’
A quick head shake and Garcia let out a relieved breath. ‘What did she see this time?’
Hunter ran through everything Mollie had told him the night before. Traffic started to ooze through, but Garcia didn’t notice.
‘New Year’s Day? What does it mean?’
‘I’m not sure, but Mollie was certain it meant something to the killer. Something important.’
‘Maybe it’s when the killer plans to strike again,’ Garcia ventured.
Hunter closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. ‘Or the day he plans to end it. Maybe it means that they’ll all be dead by New Year’s Day.’
‘All? How many is all?’
‘I’m not sure, but whatever she meant by New Year’s Day, it doesn’t give us much time.’
‘Nine days, to be exact.’
Hunter understood and shared Garcia’s frustration. So far they had nothing concrete, no real leads, just suppositions based on the little they knew and the visions of a seventeen-year-old girl.
Angry drivers sounded their horns. Garcia inched his car forward.
‘Did she see any reasoning behind any of this? Why the killer is going after these people? Anything to do with the schools or the students at all?’
A quick head shake.
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
Eighty-Eight
Hunter and Garcia arrived at Gardena High fifteen minutes late.
Mrs. Adams was a plump, cheery-looking woman of almost sixty with perfectly coiffed silver hair and a heartwarming smile. She was glad to help and directed both detectives to an archives room filled with storage boxes at the back of the library.
‘The boxes are all labeled by year.’ Mrs. Adams’s voice was as sweet as her pale green eyes.
Hunter turned to her. She was almost a foot shorter than him. ‘Thank you very much for your kindness, Mrs. Adams. We’ll be OK now.’
She hesitated at the door.
‘We won’t make a mess.’ Hunter smiled. ‘I promise.’
‘If you need me, I’ll be in the main library floor.’ She closed the door behind her.
From a folder he’d brought with him, Hunter retrieved the picture of the four girls Garcia had gotten from the old storage room the day before. He placed it on a large table in the center of the room. He also retrieved the male photograph they’d found on the fireplace in the house in Malibu. If the second victim had been a student in Gardena High, there was a chance so had the first one.
‘This was taken in 1985.’ Hunter pointed to the girls’ photo. ‘Let’s include that year and go two above and one below – from ’84 to ’87.’
