This time Hunter nodded. ‘Or something very similar.’

Hunter’s head movement was mirrored by Dr. Slater. ‘And that conclusion, I’d say, brings us to the only other similarity in MO I could find so far between this victim and the one from three nights ago. The first one being, as you remember, the dining chair.’

‘Torture,’ Garcia said.

‘Exactly,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘The first victim had her face lacerated little by little, this one had her skull punctured . . . a hole at a time.’

Hunter thought it was about time to give Dr. Slater a little more information. ‘There is a third similarity between the two murders, doc.’

She turned to face him.

‘The video-call,’ Hunter explained. ‘Just like with the first murder, the killer broadcasted the whole ordeal over a video-call. This time to the victim’s husband.’

‘Nothing is a hundred percent confirmed yet,’ Garcia took over, ‘as we’re still to talk to Mr. Jenkinson.’

‘Where is he?’ Dr. Slater asked.

‘Apparently on his way here right now, but he was in Fresno when he received the call.’

‘Fresno?’

Garcia nodded. ‘He’s a business consultant. He was away on a job.’

‘Another question game?’ Dr. Slater asked.

Garcia’s head tilted sideways slightly. ‘Apparently yes, and if the rules were the same as the first time, with every wrong answer the killer was given . . .’ He nodded at the victim. ‘She got punished.’

‘Another “face slam” into a glass container,’ the doctor said in thought. ‘Another hole hammered into her skull.’

‘Once the game was over,’ Hunter said, ‘the husband made the nine-one-one call.’

‘That would explain how come we all got here so fast,’ the doctor said. ‘Her blood is practically still warm. Rigor mortis hasn’t even started yet. I’d say she’s been dead for about two hours, maybe less.’

‘How many would it take, Doc?’ Garcia asked. ‘How many punctures into her skull before the game was over?’

‘Very hard to tell, Detective.’ Dr. Slater’s eyes, now full of pity, returned to the victim. ‘Different factors would influence that number – diameter of the nail used, location of the perforation, how deep the nail was driven into her cranium, and if it hit brain matter or not. Depending on the killer’s accuracy and how much torture he wanted to inflict, the game could’ve been over with one wrong answer or ten. The killer controlled everything here.’

Hunter took a couple of steps back as he finally managed to drag his attention away from the victim. Just like he’d noticed in the Jenkinsons’ anteroom, nothing in their living room looked to have been either disturbed or moved out of place. He had already studied Cassandra’s fingers, hands and arms. There were no bruises, no scratches, and no hints of any sort of defensive wounds. She was a reasonably tall woman – five-eight, maybe five-nine, slim and muscle-toned enough to suggest at least one weight-training session in the gym a week. Unless she had been taken completely by surprise, or subdued at gunpoint, she would’ve put up a fight, and a good one, Hunter was fairly certain of it, yet there were no signs of a struggle anywhere – not on her body, nor in her house.

‘Has her cellphone been found?’ Hunter asked.

‘It has,’ Doctor Slater answered. ‘Would you like to have a guess as to where we found it?’

‘Microwave,’ Garcia said.

Doctor Slater confirmed it with a sideways head nod.

‘Computer? Laptop? Tablet?’

‘We haven’t checked the whole house yet, but there’s a laptop on the kitchen counter.’ With her index finger she pointed in the direction of it.

Something new for IT Forensics to have fun with, Hunter thought.

Dr. Slater had gone back to studying the victim’s body. ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ she said, dragging Hunter’s attention away from his thoughts.

‘You mean the apparent fluctuation in MO?’ he said.

She first nodded then paused, re-evaluating Hunter’s words. ‘Apparent? I thought I’d just described four major diverging points.’

‘And they were all correct and very valid,’ Hunter replied. ‘But I think that we’re maybe forgetting something here.’

‘And what’s that?’ the doctor asked.

‘If we are indeed talking about the same killer of three nights ago, this is his second offence. Right now, what really constitutes his MO, even his signature, is not totally clear because we have only one point of comparison.’

Dr. Slater thought about it for a quick second before accepting Hunter’s argument with an eyebrow movement.

He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a framed wedding photograph from the mantelpiece. It showed the victim and her husband standing at the steps that led up to a church entrance. Hunter recognized it as being the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles. The smile on both of their faces told its own story.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘There are a lot of indications to what this killer’s MO might be. There are a lot of diverging points as well, but the truth is that right now he might just be experimenting.’

The doctor kneeled down in front of Cassandra to study her eyes. ‘Wait a second,’ she said, finally picking up the meaning in Hunter’s words. ‘If you’re right and he’s still experimenting, then we all know what this means, don’t we? This won’t end here. He’s going to kill again.’

Neither Hunter nor Garcia replied.

They didn’t need to.

Forty-Nine

As Mr. J joined the freeway heading towards Bakersfield and Los Angeles, he brought the speed on his Cadillac CTS-V up to seventy miles per hour, the maximum permitted by the California Department of Transport and the Highway Patrol. His head was still a mess. Thought processes would start at the back of his mind but, before developing into anything significant, they would be shattered into tiny pieces by flashback images of Cassandra being tortured in their own living room, by the hopeless look in her eyes, by the way she convulsed for the very last time. They would be drowned by the sound of that daemonic voice, a sound he knew he would never forget.

Mr. J took a deep breath and the effort made his whole body shake with sadness once again. He began coughing as if he was about to throw up, but his empty stomach produced nothing.

Coughing frenzy over, he checked the dashboard clock and then the speedometer. He’d already been driving for over an hour and even if he kept to the maximum limit throughout the entire journey, it would still take him around two hours to get back to Los Angeles and his house in Granada Hills.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit!’ he screamed at nothing and at everything while punching the steering wheel.

He knew that LAPD Detectives and a forensic team would already be there, probing through his house, disturbing Cassandra’s body. He knew it because he was the one who made the call. That had been the first of the three phone calls he’d made just before leaving his hotel room in Fresno. The second call was made to one of his contacts inside the LAPD. Someone who he paid well, but who also owed him a lot more than his own life. He owed Mr. J his wife’s and his kid’s life too.

‘Hello!’ Skeptically, the deep, rough voice answered the call after the second ring.

‘Brian?’ Mr. J asked out of courtesy. Besides being able to recognize Brian’s very distinctive voice anywhere, Mr. J had called him on the usual number. A number no one else knew about. A number no one else used, except for the two of them.

There was a long pause where Mr. J heard muffled footsteps, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing, then a few more muffled footsteps.