Now that you’re in here, Robert, he asked himself. What the hell are you actually looking for? Do you have any idea? He got to the door at the other side of the living room. It led him into a den with leather seats, plush white rugs and a tall bookcase. The east wall was framed entirely by full-length windows, looking out into the house’s backyard. Hunter checked some of the titles on the bookcase and a pit started forming inside his stomach. There were books on medicine, electronics, mechanical engineering, information technology, law, forensic psychology, forensic investigation and police procedure.

‘It looks like he likes to research,’ Hunter said. He was about to go back on himself and check the rooms upstairs, when he noticed a wooden door by the other end of the bookcase. Faint spots of light were coming from underneath it. Cautiously, he walked over, flattened his ear against the door and listened for a moment – some sort of low droning noise was coming from the other side.

Hunter tried the door – unlocked. As he twisted its handle, he felt his heart pick up speed inside his chest. An uncomfortable tingling sensation began rubbing the back of his neck, as if trying to warn him about something. This time he tried to listen, but the sensible voice inside of him had said its piece and was now long gone.

Hunter reached for his gun.

The door opened without a single squeak, revealing a narrow flight of concrete stairs going down into some sort of basement. The stairs were lit by a single light bulb that hung from a wire above Hunter’s head. The air was damp and soiled with a musty smell. At the bottom of the stairs, another closed door.

Hunter took the steps down one at a time, being extremely cautious not to misplace a foot and slip. His grip tightened around the handle of his semi-automatic, and as he got to the bottom, his eyes ping-ponged from one door to the other several times. He stood still for a while, listening for any sort of sound. Still, all he could hear was the low droning noise coming from somewhere on the other side of the new door.

Hunter wiped his forehead with the back of his gun hand and tried the door handle – unlocked. He pushed the door open just enough for him to be able to take a peek inside. He didn’t need his flashlight anymore. At the other side of the door, a large basement room sprawled out before his eyes. There were several shelving units lining the walls to his right and left, with different-sized boxes occupying every inch of space on them.

Without twitching a muscle, and keeping his breathing as steady as he could, Hunter observed from the door for a two full minutes. Nothing. No movement. He took a deep breath, steadied his trigger finger and stepped inside.

The large basement was lit by two fluorescent tube lights, parallel to each other on the ceiling. The droning sound seemed to be coming from somewhere behind one of the shelving units at the other end of the room.

Hunter took tiny steps forward. With each step, his eyes scanned and re-scanned his surroundings as if he was point in a Delta team, but with so many units and boxes, he might as well be walking into a minefield.

The tingling sensation at the back of his neck intensified.

After his tenth step, something to Hunter’s left caught his eyes and he stopped moving. His gaze shot in that direction and towards the large board that had been fixed to the wall.

As he realized what he was actually staring at, his blood froze in his veins.

‘Oh . . . fuck . . .’

Eighty-Nine

Cory Russo was still looking at Mr. J with firm steady eyes.

Mr. J stared back at him calmly, his gun still aimed at his forehead. He didn’t mind the defiant look in Russo’s eyes or the challenging smirk on his lips. He seen it before so many times, he actually enjoyed it, because he knew that soon, very soon, that defiance, that smirk, the entire ‘badass’ attitude, would vanish. In its place would come petrifying fear, and a hell of a lot of begging and crying.

Mr. J reached into his pocket and took out a small, wallet-sized photograph.

‘Remember her?’

Russo’s eyes settled on the picture for no longer than three seconds. ‘Nope. Never seen the bitch before.’

Mr. J had been staring straight at Russo’s eyes. He saw the recognition in them. He saw the lie coming.

‘Is that right?’

Russo matched his stare.

Mr. J didn’t ask again. He simply squeezed the trigger on his pistol. The nine-millimeter round missed Russo’s left ear by a mere fraction, exploding against the white tiles behind him and sending shards and dust flying in the air. Mr. J had missed on purpose.

Russo’s hand shot up to his ear like a rocket.

There it was, the vanishing of the defiant grin. The crumbling of the badass attitude. The crying would come soon.

‘What the fuck, man?’ Russo yelled. ‘Are you fucking nuts?’

Another squeeze of the trigger. This time, the bullet missed Russo’s right ear. More shards. More dust.

Up came the other hand. ‘Fuuuuuuuck. What are you doing? Stop, man. Stop.’

Mr. J said nothing. He simply tapped his finger on the photograph.

‘OK, man, OK,’ Russo said. ‘You’ve got the wrong guy, though. She wasn’t one of mine.’

Mr. J found the answer a little odd. ‘One of yours? You better start talking plain English.’ He nodded with the barrel of his gun.

‘Yeah, man, she wasn’t one of mine,’ Russo said again. ‘She was supposed to be one of Toby’s.’ His chin jerked up slightly.

‘No. That still makes no sense,’ Mr. J said.

Russo saw the determination in Mr. J’s eyes and knew that he was about to squeeze the trigger again.

‘Wait, wait!’ he yelled, lifting his hands in surrender. ‘That’s how we did it, man,’ Russo began, his voice a lot less steady. ‘I scouted the ones for him, he scouted the ones for me, then we’d swop info. We live across town from each other and we thought that there was no way anyone could link the women back to us. On his nights, I made sure that I was in a place full of people, and I made sure that they remembered me, you know what I’m saying? On my nights, he did the same.’ Russo paused and nodded at the photograph. ‘But Toby never got to her, man. I did scout her out for him, yes. Gave him her picture and all, but he never did her, man. Not yet. She was . . . still to come.’

Mr. J was stunned. He now realized that he had the wrong guy. Cory Russo was a scumbag, but not the scumbag who had murdered Cassandra. He and his pothead friend, Toby, were two sack-of-shit rapists, who had devised a cunning plan so as not to be caught. In his job as a plumber, Russo would no doubt visit several homes a week. Toby would have a similar kind of job and did the same. They would then pick victims out for each other, probably based on some sick criteria. They would swop information, then choose a day. When Russo was out raping some poor woman that Toby had chosen for him, Toby would be at a bar, or at a park . . . somewhere with lots of people, and he would make sure that he was noticed. If the victim reported the crime, and Mr. J knew that the sad reality in the USA was that less than 50 percent of rape victims would report the attack, there was a chance that the investigating team would come knocking on Toby’s door, but Toby would have a number of witnesses who could vouch for his whereabouts on the day or night of the crime. The process would work the other way around when Toby was out raping.

A brand-new pit of hate began digging its way through Mr. J’s heart.

‘What was the time frame?’ Mr. J asked. Despite his anger, his voice remained unaltered.