‘Hello?’ Garcia called out tentatively.
Russell moved right and flicked on a new wall switch.
A dim light sprang to life, illuminating a spot about six feet in front of Garcia.
His eyes widened at what he saw. At the same time, he felt a pit open up in his stomach.
Garcia was looking at an animal cage that couldn’t be any larger than five feet by five feet. Inside it was what could only bedescribed as the crumbs of a woman. Even if Garcia knew who she was, he doubted he’d be able to recognize her. It really did seem that she had no flesh on her anymore, only skin and bones, some of which looked to be about to rip through her thin skin and protrude out. She was lying on the floor, which was caked with blood, curled up into an ugly ball. Her eyes seemed almost loose inside their sockets… her cheeks had sunk into her mouth… and her lips seemed to have disappeared completely, substituted by a thin, colorless line. The way in which the light reflected off her saggy skin served only to accentuate her dark veins, making her look like a zombie straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster production. Due to the position that she was in, Garcia could see the soles of her feet, which were nothing but a combination of raw flesh and caked blood.
She was dying. There was no question about that.
‘You monstrous sonofabitch,’ Garcia said, his gaze on the stick-thin figure inside the animal cage.
‘What?’ Russell said from behind him. ‘No sarcastic joke this time? What’s the matter, Mr. LAPD Detective? Not funny enough for you?’
The woman on the floor tried to look up at Garcia, but she was so weak that her head just collapsed back to the ground.
Garcia felt his throat constrict.
How evil could one person be?
Russell rotated Garcia’s chair back to its original position, locked the wheels and returned to the table of instruments. As he did, he picked up the handheld blowtorch again.
‘I’m going to ask you a few questions,’ Russell said, taking two steps toward Garcia and lighting up the blowtorch. ‘How close this fire gets to your skin will depend on your answers.’
Silence.
‘How did you find us?’ Russell asked.
Garcia’s skin turned into gooseflesh.Us. How did you find‘us’… not ‘me’. Was he referring to himself and the woman in the cage, or himself and an accomplice?
‘Us?’ Garcia tried his luck. ‘Who is us?’
Russell frowned at Garcia, which once again made his face look alien without any eyebrows. ‘You really ain’t got a clue about anything, do you?’ He walked back to where the table was and returned the blowtorch to it before reaching for another light switch on the other side. This one ignited a bulb several feet to the left of the table, its weak light just falling into Garcia’s field of vision.
‘Jesus!’ Garcia gasped, his heart now beating at the bottom of his throat. He truly couldn’t believe what he was actually looking at.
He and Hunter had been wrong.
There weren’t two of them.
There were three.
Fifty-Six
At that time at night and with sirens blasting, Hunter covered the eight miles that separated North Long Beach from Watts in just under ten minutes. The GPS coordinates that Milton had simultaneously sent to his cellphone and car satnav system took Hunter to Firth Boulevard and the entrance to the Thomas Riley High School car park.
The whole parking lot sat in semi-darkness, with only two lampposts operating. The first was located on the boulevard, just outside the car-park entrance gates. The second was by one of the school buildings, all the way on the other side of the lot. Garcia’s car was parked about halfway between the two lampposts, practically hidden in the shadows. Parked directly behind it was an LAPD black-and-white unit. Its flashing lights were on and Hunter could see two uniformed officers outside their vehicle. They seemed to be checking Garcia’s Honda Civic.
Hunter parked by the police cruiser and immediately stepped out of his car. As he did, the officer standing by the Honda’s driver’s door turned to face him.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me, right?’ the officer said, his eyes widening at Hunter, as the beam of his flashlight moved over to the detective.
It was only then that Hunter realized that the officer was Emiliano Esqueda.
‘What’s going on here?’ Emiliano asked, his gaze firmly on Hunter.
The second officer, who had been peeking into Garcia’s car through the passenger window, straightened his body and adjusted his cap on his head.
