The phone sprang to life.
Hunter stared at its home screen for a moment. He knew that Garcia hadn’t sent him a message. He’d already checked. But just like someone who had misplaced his keys and kept on checking the same pocket, over and over again, Hunter tapped the text message application icon and navigated back to the last message that Garcia had sent him. Nothing had changed. It was still the message that Garcia had sent him the night before:And again… nope… nothing tonight. See you in the morning.
‘Fuck!’ Hunter rubbed his forehead with the heel of his left hand.
He checked the call log one more time – nothing had changed there either – last call out at 7:09 p.m., to Anna.
‘Fuck… fuck… fuck!’
Whoever took him,Hunter thought,got to him pretty damn fast.
Not knowing what else to do, Hunter tapped the photo gallery icon on Garcia’s cellphone, bringing up a screen titled ‘My Albums’. The screen showed a collection of thumbnails, each representing a different photo album stored in the phone. The first album in Garcia’s cellphone – top left-hand corner – was titled ‘camera’, and the thumbnail image for it immediately caught Hunter’s attention. It wasn’t a very clear photo, but it seemed to be the thumbnail of a pickup truck.
‘What the fuck?’
Hunter quickly tapped the thumbnail and the screen refreshed to show the contents of the camera album. He, once again, tapped the thumbnail in the top left-hand corner – the photo of the pickup truck, the most recent photo added to thatparticular album. The full image loaded onto the screen and Hunter felt his core freeze.
The photo had been taken from about fifteen yards away and showed a black Dodge RAM pickup truck parked about four spaces to the left of Garcia’s blue Honda Civic. The lighting was terrible, but both vehicles were still easily identifiable, and there was no doubt that the photo had been taken in that same school parking lot.
Hunter looked up, his eyes searching his surroundings. The photo showed both vehicles from the front. Garcia had taken it from the school gates, as he exited the building to get to his car, and before anyone else had gotten to the parking lot.
That, Hunter thought,was a very smart move.
Sixty-Five
It took Shannon less than two minutes to get back to Hunter with an address for the license plate number that he’d given her. That address took him to a cul-de-sac, high in Hollywood Hills.
The first thing that Hunter noticed as he switched off his headlights and turned right into the isolated road was that there were only five houses on that street, with plenty of trees in between them. Two of the houses seemed to be vacant, with a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front lawn. The one that he was looking for was the very last property at the top of the cul-de-sac.
The two-story house looked spacious enough, with three large front windows – two on the bottom floor and one on the top one – a gable roof, a patchy front lawn and a ranch-style front porch. The iron fence that surrounded the house was there for aesthetic reasons, not security, which allowed Hunter to breach it with ease.
He could see no lights on anywhere.
To the right of the house there was a two-car garage. The driveway that led up to it was made up of poorly laid-out and uneven concrete slabs, most of which were cracked and warped, with grass and weeds having sprung out along the joints. The garage door was closed and there was no vehicle parked either on the driveway or in front of the house.
Hunter quickly walked up to the garage and tried the door. Tohis surprise, it was unlocked. Hoping that the hinges wouldn’t squeak too loudly, he carefully lifted the door, but only enough for him to be able to stoop under it.
The hinges didn’t scream at all.
Inside the garage, Hunter found two vehicles parked side by side – a 2020 Cajun Red Chevrolet Impala, and a 2021 Dodge RAM 3500 pickup truck – the same Dodge RAM pickup truck that he’d asked Shannon to locate just a little while ago. Both vehicles were locked and clearly alarmed.
Hunter exited the garage and walked back to the house. Despite the curtains that covered both front windows being drawn shut, he could still tell that there was no light coming from behind them.
He tried the front door – locked.
He tried the windows – locked.
Hunter rounded the property as far as he could, before a hedge fence, by the back of the house, stopped him from going any further. On the way, he passed two other windows – curtains drawn… no lights… both locked.
Just a few feet from the hedge fence, on the right side of the house, there was a glass-panel door. Hunter used his flashlight against one of the panels to peek inside. The door led into what appeared to be a large utilities room. From outside, Hunter couldn’t see much, just a washing machine, a tumble dryer, several shelves packed with what seemed to be canned food, and several stacked-up cardboard boxes.
He tried the handle on the door – locked.
Police protocol dictated that he should first ring the doorbell and talk to whomever came to the door… if anyone did. But if he was at the right place – and his gut feeling was telling him that he was – then ringing the doorbell would only serve to alert whomever was inside, and Hunter wasn’t about to do that.
According to California state law, an officer needed a warrantto enter a private property without the consent of the owner. But, like with every law, there were exceptions. One of those exceptions was if the officer had reason to believe that a life could be in danger inside the property.
Hunter used his elbow to give one of the glass panels a firm knock. It smashed without too much noise, as the glass pieces fell onto a doormat on the inside. He cleared away the remaining glass shards and carefully unlocked the door.
