‘Earlier?’
Hunter hesitated for a moment. ‘The visions you had before. The two people you saw. They weren’t the only victims. There were others before them, and there’s been another one since.’
‘No, no. It’s not them. It’s the next victim. I know it,’ she said in a panic-stricken tone.
Hunter was already at the door. ‘How can you be so sure, Mollie?’
‘Because it’s me.’ Her voice faltered. ‘He’s coming after me.’
Hundred and Sixteen
‘Wherever it is that you’re going I’m coming with,’ Garcia said, reaching for his jacket as Hunter ran past him and out into the corridor. ‘What’s going on, Robert?’
Hunter didn’t answer. He didn’t stop or turn around. Garcia only managed to catch up with him when they reached the parking lot.
‘You’re driving,’ Hunter said, pressing the speed dial button on his cell phone. He got the prerecorded message straight away.
‘Where am I going?’ Garcia asked as he turned on the engine.
‘Drive as if you were going to my place. The hotel where Mollie is staying is just three blocks from me.’
‘What happened?’
Hunter recounted the conversation he’d had with Mollie.
‘Holy shit!’ Garcia’s eyes widened. ‘When did she have the vision?’
‘I don’t know. I told you word for word what she said.’
‘And the connection simply went dead?’
A quick nod. ‘As if somebody had snapped the phone shut. I just tried calling her back – voice mail.’ Hunter closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to think clearly. Mollie hadn’t been exact when she told him that she’d left the hotel. That could’ve been ten minutes or five hours ago. She could still be in the hotel vicinity, or miles away by now. But where would she go?
Hunter remembered Mollie mentioning a friend she used to work with called Susan, but that was done in passing and he had no address for her.
‘Did she have any money?’ Garcia asked, eager to help.
Hunter opened his eyes and looked at his partner. ‘Not enough for a ticket anywhere,’ he replied, already knowing what Garcia was thinking. He tried her cell phone again – prerecorded message.
They arrived at the Travel Inn in East Florence Avenue in less than twelve minutes. It was a typical two- story, U-shaped travelers’ hotel found all across America. No need to go through reception to get to the rooms. Both detectives rushed up to number 219 on the second floor. They knocked on the door, tapped on the window and called her name. Mollie wasn’t in.
Hundred and Seventeen
The overweight receptionist at the front desk confirmed that the key to room 219 was in its cubbyhole. That particular Travel Inn hadn’t yet upgraded to the now-conventional key cards, still using the old-fashioned key and massive key-ring combination. Guests at the hotel weren’t requested to leave the key at reception when they were going out. The receptionist hadn’t seen Mollie. The key had been dropped into the express-return box and she had no idea what time that happened.
Hunter flashed his badge, grabbed the key and returned to Mollie’s room. The few things she had with her when he took her there two nights ago were gone, and so was her rucksack. Hunter checked the room and the bed while Garcia took care of the bathroom.
‘Robert, you better come take a look at this.’
Hunter entered the bathroom and froze as his eyes rested on a few drops of blood in the sink. They looked around but there was no sign of a struggle. Nothing seemed disturbed. Hunter examined the blood.
‘What’re you thinking?’ Garcia asked.
‘Nosebleed. Mollie told me she gets them sometimes, mainly after visions.’
‘What do you wanna do?’
Hunter dialed a number on his cell phone. The person at the other end answered it on the second ring.
‘Trevor, it’s Hunter, Robert Hunter. I need you to do me a favor.’
Trevor Tollino was the most senior officer with the Special Operations Bureau of the LAPD, and a close friend.
‘What do you need, Robert?’ he murmured down the phone. Trevor used to be a field cop, but during a gunfire exchange with a drug gang in south LA he was hit in the neck. The bullet damaged his vocal cords, and after two operations he was left with a soft whispering voice. Hunter was the one who risked his life to pull a bleeding Trevor back to cover.
‘I need you to track down the location of a cell phone. It’s equipped with the latest GPS chip.’
‘Even with GPS, cell phones can be tricky to trace, Robert. If the phone’s on, it should take a few minutes. If the phone’s been turned off, then we’ve got a problem.’
‘Can you give it a try?’ Hunter said, giving Trevor Mollie’s number and all the information he’d copied down when he purchased the phone. ‘Call me back as soon as you have something.’
There was a pause. ‘Is this an official request, Robert?’
‘It’s a life-or-death request.’
Another short pause. ‘No problem. Leave it with me. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’
Hunter paced the room and checked the window a couple of times. From the room he could see a small section of the street below and nothing else.
His phone rang, making Garcia jump on his seat.
‘Trevor, talk to me?’
‘I’ve got nothing, Robert. I can’t triangulate on it. The phone has either run out of battery or it’s been switched off. What I do have is the general location of its last call.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The call was made to your phone.’
‘And the location?’
‘Firestone Boulevard in Downey.’
‘What? Downey is about seven miles from here. Can you give me a more specific location?’
‘Sorry, Robert. The call didn’t last long enough for me to properly close in on it. The best I could do was to narrow its location down to a general area. The phone was last active somewhere around the junction of Firestone and Lakewood.’ A brief pause. ‘After that it simply vanished.’
Hundred and Eighteen
Hunter took a moment to rearrange his thoughts. There were four possibilities swimming around in his head. One – Mollie had been too spooked by her new vision and was now wandering the streets of LA with no real objective. Two – she’d decided to leave Los Angeles; after all, she’d thought about it before. Three – she’d looked up a friend, possibly the Susan woman she’d mentioned in passing. And four – she’d been abducted.
Mollie didn’t have enough cash for an air ticket, and there was no rail or bus station anywhere around Downey. If she was thinking about leaving LA, she had gone to the wrong part of town. Downey was also too far for her to have aimlessly walked there in a panic. There had to be a reason why her call to Hunter had come from a place seven and a half miles away from where the hotel was.
