Hunter and Garcia knew that there was nothing more they, or Doctor Snyder, could do. The Criminalistics Laboratory was part of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center at the LA Regional Crime Lab and the whole facility was shared jointly by five different organizations, all of them wanting results back by yesterday. Their technicians had more work than they could possibly handle. An urgent request by one of their own sure was an advantage, but not a guarantee. For now, all they could do was wait.

Sixty-Nine

Hunter managed only three and a half hours of sleep before his brain was fully awake again. He kept his eyes shut for another minute or two, hoping, willing, but deep inside he knew that it was a futile exercise. No matter how hard he wished, no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes, sleep would not come back.

Finally giving up, he rolled over in bed and opened his eyes. Unorganized thoughts collided against each other inside his head, creating an undecipherable mess that only served to confuse him more. He breathed out a leaden breath, swung his feet off the bed and sat at its edge, giving his eyes a chance to get rid of the stupor of sleep. He checked the digital clock by his bed – 4:55 a.m.

In the bathroom, Hunter washed his face and brushed his teeth before regarding himself in the mirror just above the washbasin for an instant. He looked exhausted. His eyes were half bloodshot and the circles under them were starting to look like badly applied makeup.

Entering his living room, and without even thinking about it, he checked the floor by the front door.

Nothing.

No envelopes.

He shook his head as he considered the silliness of what he’d just done.

But was it really? he heard the little voice at the back of his mind ask. The killer had done it once, and there was nothing to keep him from doing it again. In his entire career as an RHD detective, Hunter had never dealt with a more unpredictable predator.

He crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. After pouring himself a glass of water from the tap, he pulled open the fridge door and looked inside. Its emptiness made him chuckle. All he had was the still-untouched energy drink, a couple of apples and three dried-up slices of pizza – hot pepperoni. The beef jerk pieces were all gone, but cold pizza was probably Hunter’s favorite breakfast. He had practically lived on it throughout his college years.

He grabbed a pizza slice and walked back into his living room. Once again, he checked the floor by his front door.

Nothing.

‘OK, Robert, you’re going to have to stop doing this,’ he said to himself as he took a bite of his pizza. To him, it actually tasted better than when it was piping hot.

He walked up to the window and peeked outside, searching for nothing at all. He lived in a quiet corner of Huntingdon Park and, as far as he could see, the streets still looked dead.

He had another bite of his pizza and turned away from the window. On the table by his small bar was a photocopy of the killer’s third note. He’d read it so many times that he could probably recite it backwards, word for word.

He checked the clock on the wall – 5:11 a.m.

Hunter finished eating his pizza slice, went back into the kitchen and grabbed a second one. On his way back, he checked the floor again.

Nothing.

He cursed himself for his paranoia and paused by the note. He decided not to sit down. From his standing position, he read it again a couple of times. Just like before, nothing stood out.

He concentrated on the last part of the note.

Do you want to know who I am, Detective Hunter?

Do you really want to know?

He paused.

Well, the clues are in the name.

FOR I AM DEATH.

Hunter was sure that it wasn’t an attempt at being funny or sarcastic.

He read the whole thing one more time.

Zilch. He could think of nothing.

Hunter gave up.

As he looked away from the note and in the direction of his bar, his gaze grazed the last few lines. It was as if, for some reason, his brain decided to mix up the words and the letters in a peculiar way. For a split second he saw something that made him freeze in place.

‘What the hell?’

Hunter stared at it again, his breathing calm, his eyes searching for what he had just seen.

Nothing.

‘Where is it?’ he breathed out, trying again, willing his eyes to find it.

He couldn’t see it.

Had he imagined it?

Hunter looked away, blinked a couple of times and then looked back at the note.

Not there.

Maybe he had imagined it.

He did it again, but this time he only allowed his gaze to just scrape over the letters.

His breathing caught in his throat.

There it was.

Seventy

Garcia pulled into an empty space in the Police Administration Building parking lot, shut off the car’s engine and checked the screen display on his cellphone for the tenth time since he’d gotten out of bed that morning. It showed nothing. No missed calls. No text messages.

Even without confirmation from the forensics lab, what they’d found yesterday in Mathew Hade’s apartment was enough to send alarm bells ringing everywhere. An APB had been sent out to every police station and sheriff’s department in the Los Angeles area. A design expert from the LAPD IT Division had used the mugshot they had of Mathew Hade and created a series of variations to the way he might now look, adding different hairstyles, hair colors and facial hair. A note was added to the APB alerting everyone to keep in mind that the subject had, very possibly, become quite skillful with makeup and disguise and that the images were to be used mainly as guidelines.

After a lengthy meeting with Hunter and Garcia, Captain Blake authorized an around-the-clock surveillance operation on Mathew Hade’s apartment. The first LAPD Special Investigation Section team had been dispatched to the address last night.

The LAPD SIS was an Elite Tactical Surveillance squad that had existed for more than forty years, despite efforts from various human rights and political groups to shut it down. The reason for such efforts was that their kill rate was higher than that of any other unit in the department, including SWAT. SIS teams were mainly used to stealthily watch apex predators – individuals suspected of violent crimes who would not cease until caught in the act. Masters of disguise and surveillance, every SIS officer was an expert in close-quarters combat as well as a distinguished marksman. Their main tactic was to wait to observe a suspect committing new crimes before moving in to make arrests. Due to the fact that most suspects would not surrender without a fight, lethal force was often used. With that in mind, all SIS teams for this operation were under specific orders that if Mathew Hade was sighted, he was not to be approached. Their job was to keep him under surveillance and not lose him until the detectives in charge of the investigation got there.