Hunter couldn’t disagree with anything Garcia had said.

What Garcia also knew was that killers who liked taunting authorities with messages tended to hide clues deep within those messages, sometimes in cryptic format. And Garcia knew no one better at reading between the lines than Hunter.

‘OK,’ Garcia said, once again indicating the transcribed notes on Hunter’s desk. ‘Now it’s your turn. Have you come up with anything?’

Hunter gave his partner a shabby shake of the head. ‘The note clearly isn’t written in riddle format, and if there is any double meaning to anything I haven’t been able to find it. In fact, the more I read it, the more I copied it, the more of the opposite feeling I got.’

‘Opposite feeling?’ Garcia looked a little confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Whoever wrote this note put a lot of effort into it, Carlos, carefully choosing every word. And here’s the twisted bit. He didn’t do it to confuse us, on the contrary. He did it to leave the least amount of doubt possible.’

Twenty-Eight

Garcia paused what he was doing, turned toward his partner and allowed his gaze to settle on the note on Hunter’s desk.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Let’s try to break this down into parts.’

He slid a copy of the note to the edge of his desk. His coffee had finally cooled down enough for him to have his first sip. It tasted like paradise.

‘Have a look just at the first and second paragraphs and tell me what you think they mean. Don’t try to read between the lines or find any double meanings to anything. Just read them and tell me what you think.’

Garcia didn’t bring his chair around. Instead, he just leaned over Hunter’s desk, placing both hands on the desktop.

People in this city put their trust in law enforcement agencies like the LAPD, and sometimes even the FBI, to keep them safe, to help those who can’t help themselves, to right them when they’re wronged, to protect them, and to seek justice no matter what.

Those agencies are supposed to be the best of the best. The experts when it comes to reading people and discerning good from evil. But the truth is that they only see what they want to see. And the problem with that is that when they play at being blind men, people suffer . . . people get tortured . . . and people die.

Garcia read the paragraph three times before scratching his chin and looking back at Hunter.

‘He’s preaching, being condescending even, reminding us of who we are, what our job is, what the public expect of us, and what happens when we fail or make a mistake.’ There was a short pause. ‘There’s also a blatant accusation, saying that we see only what we choose to see. And this line –’ he pointed to it on the note – ‘ ‘‘And the problem with that is that when they play at being blind men, people suffer . . . people get tortured . . . and people die.” Though very aggressive,’ Garcia continued, ‘it doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds like a statement.’

‘You’re exactly right,’ Hunter agreed. ‘There’s no other way of interpreting those two paragraphs, Carlos. They’re clear and concise. No ambiguity, no sarcasm, no play on words, no double meanings, and nothing hidden between the lines.’

Garcia’s attention didn’t deviate from the note.

‘Now, have a look at the third paragraph and tell me what you think. Again, forget double meanings and all. Just read it like a letter.’

So now I have a question. If any of these so-called experts stood face to face with someone like me, if they looked straight into my eyes, would they see the truth inside me? Would they see what I have become, or would they falter?

Garcia thought about it for a moment. ‘It’s . . . a challenge,’ he said. ‘He’s defying us to go find him. To pick him out of a crowd. To identify him. That’s the invitation to the game. As you’ve said before, he wants to play.’

‘Right again,’ Hunter said. ‘But there’s something else. Something not actually hidden. You just need to read it carefully.’

Garcia frowned and reread the paragraph a couple more times. ‘OK,’ he said, standing up straight and shrugging. ‘I’m missing it, then. What else? What am I not seeing?’

‘He’s not only challenging us to pick him out of a crowd, Carlos. He’s questioning if we’d be able to see what he has become. That’s a very powerful statement.’ Hunter had another sip of his coffee. ‘Think of what that word actually means.’

‘He’s telling us that he wasn’t always like this,’ Garcia said, looking at Hunter, his voice a touch more excited then a moment ago. ‘He wasn’t always a monster, a killer. He’s not your textbook sociopath because he wasn’t born that way. He, for the lack of a better word, became that way.’

Hunter nodded slowly.

‘Something changed him.’

Twenty-Nine

The man woke up as the first rays of the morning sun seeped through the dirty curtains covering the window on the east wall of his small bedroom. Out on the streets, garbage trucks were already noisily moving around and, far off in the distance, a couple of sirens wailed like coyotes barking at the moon.

He’d finished with Sharon Barnard in the early hours of the morning, but he’d felt too tired to drive all the way back to his place, a two-storey house somewhere northeast of Los Angeles. He’d found the property many years ago, hidden away in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but empty terrain. He had paid cash for it and used false documentation, which meant that the house could never be traced back to him. Because the building had been so run down, he’d got it for an absolute bargain. After years of repairs and heavy modifications, which he did himself, he ended up with just the perfect place. No matter how much noise anyone made from inside his house, no one would ever hear it. No one would ever come for them.

The one-bedroom apartment he was in at the moment was just a crash pad somewhere in East Los Angeles. He had paid a year’s rent in advance, all in cash. He really only used it from time to time, when circumstances demanded. Just like this morning.

As soon as the man opened his eyes, he swung his feet off the single bed, sat up straight and rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. He didn’t have a watch, and there was no clock anywhere in the room, but it didn’t matter. He knew exactly what time it was.

He reached for the medicine bottle that was on the bedside table, poured two capsules into his hand and flung them into his mouth. He didn’t need any water to wash them down. He simply filled his mouth with saliva, threw his head back with a jerk, and down they went. He walked naked to the window, his feet padding across the worn-out and scratched wooden floorboards. Outside, city life was slowly trickling on to the streets.

The man crossed over to the bathroom and paused before the small mirror on the wall just above the washbasin. He could barely recognize the stranger staring back at him now. So much had changed over the years. He would never be the same again. He knew that full well but it didn’t matter. Not to him. Not anymore.