One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) (читать книги бесплатно полные версии txt) 📗
Hunter sensed his partner’s hesitation and gave him a subtle headshake before whispering, ‘They’re all dead.’
Still, the sight of it was enough for Garcia’s memory to send him back to the day he was stung by four tarantula hawks. The day he almost died.
He took a series of steady deep breaths, fought the shiver that threatened to run down his spine and felt his heartbeat slowly return to normal. But he wasn’t the only one feeling uneasy down in that basement.
Two people had been sadistically tortured and murdered in that dark and damp room. The instruments used for all their suffering were still there, stained with their blood, filled with their pain. To everyone, it felt as if the victims’ terrified screams and pleas were still echoing around those brick walls. Graham Fisher had created a true torture chamber in his basement.
Just a few feet away from the glass coffin were an old wheelchair and two hospital-standard IV stands. Still hanging from one of their hooks, an old and empty plastic methyl B12 nutrient IV bag. No doubt one of the many different nutrient cocktails Graham had to intravenously feed his wife during her last few months alive.
‘The rack isn’t here,’ Captain Blake said. ‘That grotesque thing he used to dismember his third victim. It’s not here.’
‘He used a different location,’ Hunter said. ‘This place doesn’t have the physical structure for it.’ His eyes instinctively circled the room.
‘It’s certainly big enough,’ the SWAT captain offered.
‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But the killer had a large and heavy slab of concrete hanging high above his victim, suspended by thick metal chains. He even said that he could control it. He said that he could slowly lower the rock onto his victim’s body, adjusting the amount of pressure he was able to deliver, like a vise. He would’ve needed some very strong and probably large piece of machinery to do that.’
‘Some sort of electronically controlled crane or something,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘No way he would’ve been able to get something like that down here.’
‘So where, then?’ Captain Blake asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter said. ‘We need to check land and property registries to see if Graham Fisher owns any other properties or pieces of land. The problem is, even if he doesn’t, he could be renting a large garage or a small warehouse or any other type of building big enough for what he had in mind. If he is, I’m sure he would’ve paid cash for a short-term lease. Finding him that way can take a long time.’
Captain Blake didn’t look impressed.
‘But it’s now just a matter of time, Captain,’ Hunter added. ‘The house is lived in. There are freshly washed dishes on the dish rack in the kitchen, and the sponge is still a little damp. He wasn’t expecting us here today, so chances are he hasn’t taken all the necessary precautions. We now have a whole house to search here, including an office with a computer upstairs. There’s got to be something that will give us a clue to where he might be. Meanwhile we need a citywide APB for Graham and his car, a black Chevrolet Silverado. We need to get his picture to the press and the media ASAP. We need his face everywhere. Let’s close the circle on him. We also need a team of officers to knock on every door on this street and see if anyone knows anything.’
Captain Blake lifted both hands in the air in a surrender gesture. ‘You’ve got a green light on whatever you need.’ Her gaze moved from the glass coffin to the glass cage and then back to Hunter. ‘Just bring this psycho in.’
She walked back toward the staircase again. The basement was starting to give her the creeps. She needed to get out of there.
Michelle had also moved, but not in the direction of the staircase. She was now at the worktable by the east wall, looking through all the electronic components and blueprints she found. The blueprints were detailed schematics of how both torture devices in that basement had been put together, and how they’d work. The blueprints for the rack used to torture and murder the third victim weren’t there, but she found something else.
Something that made her blood run cold.
One Hundred and Seven
‘Shit!’ Michelle whispered, but down in the basement her whisper reverberated off the walls like a handclap. Everyone turned to face her.
‘What have you got?’ Hunter asked.
Captain Blake paused just before taking the first step up the stairs.
‘Surveillance photographs of the victims,’ Michelle replied, showing everyone the first of several photographs from the pile she had discovered. ‘Kevin Lee Parker, the first victim,’ she said.
The photo showed Kevin coming out of the videogames store he worked at. The killer had used a red marker pen to draw a circle around his face. Michelle put the photo down and reached for another one before announcing, ‘Christina Stevenson, the second victim.’
This one showed Christina as she stepped out of her house. A red circle had been also drawn around her face.
‘Ethan Walsh, the third victim,’ Michelle said, displaying a new photograph to everyone. It showed Ethan having a cigarette outside the restaurant where he worked. Another red circle.
Michelle returned the photograph to the worktable and grabbed the next one from the pile. ‘And this, I can only assume, is the next victim on his list.’
The photograph was of an attractive young woman, probably in her late twenties, sitting outside a coffee shop. She had a petite diamond-shaped face, framed by long straight blonde hair. Her bright blue eyes were a little catlike, and complemented her delicate nose, her small mouth and her shapely cheekbones very nicely. The picture was also marked with a red circle around her face. That new photograph seemed to electrify the air inside the room.
‘Is there a name?’ Hunter asked, quickly moving toward Michelle. Garcia and Captain Blake followed him.
Michelle checked the reverse side of the picture. ‘No, nothing.’ She handed it to Hunter.
Hunter checked it again before allowing his gaze to move to the worktable. ‘Are there any more photographs of her?’ he asked Michelle.
‘Not of her.’
Something in Michelle’s tone of voice made everyone pause for an instant and look at the FBI agent.
‘This is the only other photograph I found.’ She showed them the last picture she had with her, the one that had made her blood run cold.
Everyone tensed. Time appeared to slow down inside that basement.
The photograph was taken as the subject was crossing a busy road, but this time they didn’t need to search for a name. They didn’t even need to track the subject down. They were all looking at a photograph of Robert Hunter, with a red circle drawn around his face.
One Hundred and Eight
Garcia and Captain Blake paused mid-breath, their gazes drawn to the picture in Michelle’s hands like insects to a blue light. Everyone inside that room seemed to be filled with an odd, disquieting fear, except for Hunter. He simply shook his head, unfazed, taking the picture from Michelle’s hands.
‘This is not a concern,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’s not even surprising.’
‘What do you mean, it’s not a concern?’ Michelle said.
‘Because whatever Graham Fisher had planned for me, he’ll now have to reconsider, readjust, readapt, because as soon as his picture hits the news, he’ll know that he’s not a cyber ghost anymore. We now know who he is. He’ll know that we’ve been to his house, to his basement, and that we’ve found all of this.’ He indicated the room and the pictures. ‘Which means that he’ll also know that now I’m the one doing the hunting.’
