‘But she isn’t part of the news,’ Emilio said. ‘The story isn’t about her.’

A moment of confused looks.

‘She’s the reporter.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why she looked so familiar to me. My girlfriend loves to read the entertainment supplement of the LA Times on Sundays, mainly the celebrity gossip part. She’s into that kind of stuff, you know? Sometimes I flip through it myself. Anyway, that woman writes a column in the entertainment supplement. There’s always a small picture of her at the top of whatever article she wrote that week. And that’s why she looked so familiar. I’d seen her picture before several times.’

Garcia was writing something down on a notepad.

‘I didn’t look at the paper yesterday. I was working,’ Emilio explained. ‘I’m off today. I was just having a quick look through yesterday’s paper before I threw it away, and there she was.’

‘What’s her name?’ Hunter asked.

‘Christina, Christina Stevenson.’

Hunter typed her name into an Internet search engine. Within a few seconds he had her picture on his screen. Emilio was right. There was no doubt Christina Stevenson was their second victim, unless she had an identical twin or a clone working for the LA Times.

‘Great job, Emilio,’ Garcia said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ He disconnected.

Hunter was scanning through the information on one of the pages he had on his screen.

‘What have you got?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not much. Christina Stevenson, twenty-nine years old. She’d been with the LA Times for six years. The last two of those she spent with the entertainment desk, which is called by many the gossip pit. That’s all the personal information I have here.’

‘She was a gossip reporter?’ Garcia asked.

‘It looks that way.’

‘Damn, no one makes more enemies than they do, not even us.’

Garcia was right. In a city like LA, where to so many being in the public eye was as important as breathing air, gossip reporters could make or break anyone’s career. They could destroy a person’s relationship, break their family homes, expose dirty secrets, do almost anything they liked. And the worst of all was that it didn’t even have to be true. In LA the smallest of rumors could completely change someone’s life, for better or worse. Gossip reporters were known for having false friends, and real enemies.

Hunter hesitated for a second, pondering a few things over.

Garcia knew exactly what Hunter was debating in his head. If they started asking questions inside the headquarters of the LA Times, there was no hiding this story anymore. A story that, so far, no newspaper or TV news channel had picked up on. It was like taking raw meat to a pack of hungry wolves, even if the raw meat was one of their own. No information would be forthcoming, because reporters love to obtain it, but they hate giving it away.

‘So what do you want to do?’ Garcia asked. ‘Start asking questions at the Times?’

‘We’ll have to. If the victim was a reporter there, there’s no escaping it, but not just yet.’ Hunter reached for the phone on his desk and called the research team. He asked them to find out everything they could on Christina Stevenson, but more important he needed her home address ASAP. They could start there.

A minute later his phone rang.

‘Do we have an address already?’ Hunter said into the phone.

‘Um . . . Detective Robert Hunter?’ a male voice asked.

Hunter paused. ‘Yes. This is Detective Robert Hunter. Who is this?’

‘This is Detective Martin Sanchez with the Santa Monica Police Department.’

‘How can I help you, Detective Sanchez?’

‘Well, earlier this morning one of our patrol cars, answering a 911 call, found a female body at a private parking lot near Marine Park in Santa Monica.’ Sanchez paused to clear his throat. ‘Somebody left a note with the body. Your name is on it.’

Forty

It took several seconds for the blurriness to dissipate from Michelle’s vision, and even then bright spots of light seemed to be exploding everywhere. Her entire head hurt as if it was being gradually squeezed in a vise. She could feel her bottom lip pulsating from the blood pressure so ferociously she thought it would blow up like an air balloon.

‘Are you OK?’ Sophie asked. She was kneeling next to Michelle, holding her head in her hands. Everything had happened so fast she’d had no time to react.

Michelle looked at her with dopey eyes. No recognition. Her brain still wasn’t registering much.

‘Michelle, are you OK?’ Harry’s voice came through her earbuds dangling from her neck. Harry was already running down East Market Street in the direction of the skate park. All bets were off.

‘Michelle?’ Sophie called again.

Suddenly, just like being woken up by a bucket of cold water to the face, her brain re-engaged. Her eyes refocused on Sophie’s face, and everything came back to her in a flash. Her hand shot to her lip and she winced as her fingertips touched it. She pulled her hand away and looked at it.

Blood.

Confusion was immediately replaced by anger.

‘Oh no, he didn’t,’ she said to herself, quickly returning her earbuds to her ears.

‘Bird is trying to fly,’ she heard Harry say.

‘Like hell he is,’ Michelle replied.

‘Michelle, are you all right?’ Harry asked, sounding a little relieved and out of breath at the same time.

‘I’ll live,’ she replied in an angry voice.

‘That was one hell of a headbutt.’

‘Stop worrying about me, goddammit,’ she blurted into her microphone. ‘Somebody pin Bobby’s bitch-ass down.’

‘We’re already on it.’

As soon as Bobby had headbutted Michelle and run for it, the undercover agent at the beach had kneeled down by his German shepherd and pointed at Bobby, running away in the distance. ‘Take him down, boy. Take him down.’

The dog had taken off like a rocket.

Bobby was fast, but not fast enough. The dog was able to get to him in just a couple of seconds.

The takedown command instructed the dog to simply use its body weight to drop a fleeing subject to the ground. A fully developed German shepherd with running momentum produced an impact force equivalent to being hit by a motorbike at 25mph.

Bobby was catapulted forward and onto the ground, hitting the deck hard.

Fifteen minutes later Bobby was sitting in the backseat of a tinted, unmarked SUV, parked in a back alley around Venice Beach. His hands were cuffed behind his back. An FBI agent was sitting to his left. Michelle Kelly and Harry Mills were sitting directly in front of him.

Bobby kept his head low. His eyes on his knees.

‘You sucker-punch sonofabitch,’ Michelle said, touching her swollen lip again.

Bobby didn’t look up.

‘But it’s all good,’ Michelle carried on. ‘Because guess what? We’ve got your sorry ass. And you’re not going anywhere for a very long time.’

Bobby said nothing.

Michelle picked up Bobby’s backpack, unzipped it and dumped all its contents on the floor between them. There wasn’t much: several different chocolate bars, various packs of gum, three bottles of soda, a small, squared gift box with a red ribbon, a map of the area and a key on a keychain. No wallet. No driver’s license. No identification of any kind. Bobby had already been searched. He had nothing on him.

‘So what do we have here?’ Michelle said, rummaging through everything.

Bobby’s eyes followed her hands. ‘Don’t you need a warrant for that? That’s private proper . . . urgh.’

The agent’s elbow connected with Bobby’s ribcage.

‘If I were you,’ the agent said. ‘I’d limit myself to answering the questions you’re asked, or else this thing can get very ugly, very quickly . . . For you, that is.’