Once the landlord was done with her, a terrified and bleeding Alison returned to her room, gathered her few belongings and ran away for the second time in just a few weeks – once again, in the middle of the night. That night, for the first time, Alison began to believe what her father had yelled at her so many times – that she had been a mistake, that she should never have been born, that she had been put on this earth as a punishment, and that she should suffer, always. But Alison didn’t want to suffer anymore. All she wanted was to end it all.

It was around six in the morning when, by chance, she ran into Renell, a thirty-two-year-old African-American woman who had gone through everything Alison had gone through, and much more.

Renell worked for a charity group whose main purpose was to help women who had been victims of domestic abuse and violence, be it by partners or parents.

Renell’s charity sheltered Alison that night and for several nights after that. They also gave her food and medical assistance and, when she was well enough, helped her find some decent work.

As luck would have it, or not, Alison’s story was very similar to Renell’s, whose real name had once been Alisha. They became best friends, and it was Renell who, through her street contacts, arranged for Alison to get some sort of documentation with her new chosen name.

Now, twelve years later, they were still best of friends.

Forty-Eight

It was just coming up to lunchtime by the time Garcia got back to the Police Administration Building. A few white clouds had gathered over downtown Los Angeles, providing it with a much-needed break from the incessant summer heat, even if only in the form of a few scattered shadows.

‘We might have a little crack here,’ he said in an animated voice as soon as he entered the office.

Hunter, who was sitting at his desk running over a few paper files, paused what he was doing and turned to look at his partner.

Garcia immediately proceeded to tell him about the passenger who had caught Sharon Barnard’s attention on the morning flight.

‘Operations is already on it,’ he said. ‘They’re contacting US Airways and the FAA for the passenger manifest of both flights.’ He lifted a hand. ‘OK, I’m sure that if this is our guy, he no doubt used a bogus name and probably wore some kind of disguise, but if we establish that it could be him, with the manifest we could then get in touch with the passenger who was sitting next to him. Maybe he or she noticed something Tom Hobbs didn’t. Also –’ this seemed to be what excited Garcia the most because his eyebrows lifted like a drawbridge – ‘LAX is packed full of CCTV cameras, including the transit corridors. If this is our killer,’ Garcia nodded, ‘we’ll get some sort of footage.’

Garcia was so focused on the possibility of some sort of breakthrough, however small it might be, that until that moment he’d failed to notice the see-through, plastic evidence bag on Hunter’s desk. He paused and craned his neck sideways.

The evidence bag contained the brown paper envelope that had been slid under Hunter’s door in the early hours of the morning.

Garcia repositioned himself to have a better look at it. As he did, his breathing froze for a second. He didn’t need to compare it to know that handwriting.

‘What the fuck is that, Robert?’

‘It’s exactly what you think it is.’ Hunter slid the evidence bag towards his partner.

‘It was delivered here?’ Garcia asked without reaching for it.

‘No. Somebody slid it under my door some time in the middle of the night.’

Garcia looked at Hunter as if what he’d just said made no sense.

‘Under your door? As in – under the door to your apartment?’

Hunter confirmed it with a nod.

‘Somebody slid it under your door? Somebody who?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘By the time I noticed the envelope, the person was long gone.’

‘The killer?

‘I can’t think of anyone else, can you?’

‘Holy shit, Robert. Are you telling me that the killer dropped by your apartment to deliver that? He was standing just outside your front door?’

Another nod from Hunter. This time, the movement looked a little more defeated than the previous one.

‘It looks that way. Yes.’

Garcia ran both hands through his hair, pausing as they reached the back of his head. ‘What the hell, Robert? Why? Why would he do that?’

‘I have a suspicion as to why, but I’d like you to read the note first and tell me what you think.’

Despite their investigation not being in the news yet, it wouldn’t have been hard for the killer to get hold of Hunter’s address. All he needed to do was place a call to the PAB and ask for the name of the detective in charge of the investigation. Once he had Hunter’s name, obtaining his address wouldn’t have taken any longer than five minutes.

‘Has forensics seen this?’

‘Not yet,’ Hunter replied. ‘I wanted you to read it first.’

‘Sure,’ Garcia said, picking up the evidence bag and walking over to his desk. As he sat down, he pulled open the top right-hand drawer, reached inside it and retrieved a pair of latex gloves. After gloving up, he turned his full attention to the envelope.

Forty-Nine

It was a typical American diner with a flickering sign outside that read ‘Donny’s’ in large red letters. The diner was located on a strip mall, just a few blocks away from the heart of the financial district in Downtown LA. Despite it being daytime, the inside was lit by the glow of neon and the sequence of lights from a large jukebox. All the booths and tables were taken, which wasn’t really surprising because the food was good and inexpensive, and the coffee much better than that served at many of the chain coffee shops found all around the city. Yes, Donny’s was constantly busy, and lunchtimes were the rush hour of the rush hour.

As a table for two vacated, Alison Atkins, the oldest of the four waitresses working the floor that afternoon, sprayed its surface with some disinfectant soap, wiped it clean with the cloth that she kept hanging from her work apron and signaled Rita at the door to let her know that she could seat two new customers. Rita immediately sent the couple that had been waiting for the past ten minutes in Alison’s direction.

As the couple walked past table seven, the second table to the right from the front door, they paid little attention to the man who was sitting alone at it. The man, in return, seemed lost in thought, oblivious to the loud chatter and constant movement that was going on all around him. To the outside world, it looked like the only thing the man was interested in was the double espresso sitting on the table in front of him, which he’d been stirring for the past thirty seconds.

The customer sitting at table seven had come to Donny’s diner about an hour earlier. As he’d got to the door, he’d smiled politely at Rita, the young waitress who greeted him, and asked for a table for one. No tables were available at that time but he said that he didn’t mind waiting, and wait he did, for almost twenty minutes. Once he was finally seated, he once again waited patiently for the waitress to come back to him and take his order, which took her close to another ten minutes. He did all that waiting with no irritation whatsoever, as if he had all the time in the world and not a worry in his life.