Chris Carter - The Executioner

‘How can you guarantee she won’t run away from us again?’

‘I can’t. But I’m earning her trust.’

Garcia knew no one who inspired trust more than Hunter.

‘I gave her a prepaid cell phone. Our numbers are programmed in and it’s equipped with GPS. I told her never to turn it off.’

They hit heavy traffic as they merged into Harbor Freeway.

‘She had another vision.’

Garcia stared at Hunter in anticipation. ‘A new victim?’

A quick head shake and Garcia let out a relieved breath. ‘What did she see this time?’

Hunter ran through everything Mollie had told him the night before. Traffic started to ooze through, but Garcia didn’t notice.

‘New Year’s Day? What does it mean?’

‘I’m not sure, but Mollie was certain it meant something to the killer. Something important.’

‘Maybe it’s when the killer plans to strike again,’ Garcia ventured.

Hunter closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. ‘Or the day he plans to end it. Maybe it means that they’ll all be dead by New Year’s Day.’

‘All? How many is all?’

‘I’m not sure, but whatever she meant by New Year’s Day, it doesn’t give us much time.’

‘Nine days, to be exact.’

Hunter understood and shared Garcia’s frustration. So far they had nothing concrete, no real leads, just suppositions based on the little they knew and the visions of a seventeen-year-old girl.

Angry drivers sounded their horns. Garcia inched his car forward.

‘Did she see any reasoning behind any of this? Why the killer is going after these people? Anything to do with the schools or the students at all?’

A quick head shake.

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

Hunter and Garcia arrived at Gardena High fifteen minutes late.

Mrs. Adams was a plump, cheery-looking woman of almost sixty with perfectly coiffed silver hair and a heartwarming smile. She was glad to help and directed both detectives to an archives room filled with storage boxes at the back of the library.

‘The boxes are all labeled by year.’ Mrs. Adams’s voice was as sweet as her pale green eyes.

Hunter turned to her. She was almost a foot shorter than him. ‘Thank you very much for your kindness, Mrs. Adams. We’ll be OK now.’

She hesitated at the door.

‘We won’t make a mess.’ Hunter smiled. ‘I promise.’

‘If you need me, I’ll be in the main library floor.’ She closed the door behind her.

From a folder he’d brought with him, Hunter retrieved the picture of the four girls Garcia had gotten from the old storage room the day before. He placed it on a large table in the center of the room. He also retrieved the male photograph they’d found on the fireplace in the house in Malibu. If the second victim had been a student in Gardena High, there was a chance so had the first one.

‘This was taken in 1985.’ Hunter pointed to the girls’ photo. ‘Let’s include that year and go two above and one below – from ’84 to ’87.’

Garcia frowned.

‘Just because these girls hung out together doesn’t necessarily mean they were in the same class,’ Hunter explained.

They pulled the relevant boxes out of the shelves and it didn’t take them long to find four black and white thirty-six- by twenty-four-millimeter photographs of the graduating classes. Hunter started at the top, class of ’87, the year Amanda Reilly would’ve graduated if she hadn’t dropped out of school. There were a hundred and twenty-six tightly packed students in the photo.

Using a magnifying glass, he took his time jumping from the graduating photo to the girls and the unidentified first victim one, comparing every face until he was sure.

Nothing.

He moved on to the next picture, and the slow, comparing process started again. Twenty-five frustrating minutes later, Hunter struck gold.

‘I found her.’

‘Who?’ Garcia looked up excitedly.

‘Our victim number two.’ Hunter turned the picture around and pointed to a girl hidden behind two quarterback-looking boys on the second to last line of students. Only her face was visible.

Garcia used his magnifying glass, his eyes bouncing between pictures. ‘It’s her alright.’

Hunter consulted the name sheet attached to the back of the photo. ‘Her name’s Debbie Howard.’ He quickly got on the phone to Hopkins with the news, asking him to dig out everything he could on Miss Howard.

It took Garcia another twenty-five minutes to find the first of the remaining two girls – Emily Wells, class of ’84. Fifteen minutes later Hunter spotted the last one – Jessica Pierce, class of ’85. They’d been through all the pictures as thoroughly as they could. Victim number one wasn’t in any of them. They were both very sure of it.

Emily Wells and Jessica Pierce’s names were immediately passed on to Hopkins and the Investigative Analysis Unit.

‘Find them,’ was all Hunter said.

The address they had for Patricia Reed, Father Fabian’s old algebra 2 teacher, was in Pomona, the fifth-largest city in Los Angeles County and home to the famous California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly). In stop-and-go traffic, the drive from Gardena Senior High took them an hour and a half.

Minnequa Drive was a quiet street about ten minutes away from Cal Poly, and they had no problem finding the building they were looking for. Modern in style and set back from the street, the large two-story house was fronted by several perfectly trimmed hedges, a small patch of grass to the left and a two-car garage to the right. A black Dodge Journey was parked in the lavish black-and-white-checked paved driveway.

‘Wow, this is quite a nice retirement home,’ Garcia said, parking on the street in front of the house. ‘Nice ride too.’

They climbed the railed granite steps that led to the front door and rang the bell. After a few moments it was answered by a diminutive, wiry Mexican woman in her thirties dressed in a uniform like a hotel maid’s. Her black hair was bundled tightly under a hairnet.

‘Good morning,’ Hunter said with a pleasant smile, quickly returning his badge to his pocket. He knew from experience that many private house workers in LA were illegal immigrants. A police badge only causes them to panic. ‘We’re looking for Mrs. Reed.’

‘Mista Reed?’ the maid replied in heavy accented English, returning the smile.

‘No, no. Mrs. Reed. Patricia Reed.’

‘Ah. No hay . No Mrs. Reed.’

‘What do you mean, no Mrs. Reed? She isn’t home?’

‘No. Ella se ha ido para siempre .’

Hunter frowned. ‘She’s gone forever?’

‘What’s the problem, Emilia?’ A man in his early forties dressed in a gray pinstripe wool suit with a light blue tab-collar shirt and a blue-on-blue striped tie appeared at the end of the entrance hall. He was tall, well built and movie-star handsome, with dark blue eyes and a strong, squared jaw.

The maid turned to face him. ‘ Creo que estos señores están en busca de su madre , Mr. Reed.’

‘ Esta bien , Emilia, tranquilo . I’ll talk to them.’ He motioned her to go back to her duties.

‘Good morning, gentlemen. I’m James Reed,’ the man said as he got to the door. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I understand by what Emilia said that Patricia Reed is your mother?’ Hunter asked in a polite tone.

‘I thought you said you didn’t understand Spanish,’ Garcia said under his breath.

‘Patricia Reed was my mother. She passed away five months ago.’

‘We’re sorry to hear that. We didn’t know.’

‘What’s this about, gentlemen?’