Chris Carter - The Caller

Hunter didn’t need to reply.

‘That’s right. He was on his fucking cellphone.’

Holden delivered his last sentence with so much anger, Hunter thought he was about to pull the trigger.

‘The mother survived. The child didn’t. The driver never stopped to help.’

The pause that followed was long.

‘What I saw that day, the way it made me feel, ignited something new inside of me.’ Holden’s voice was back to sounding emotionless. ‘That was when it dawned on me that I indeed needed to stop vegetating. Not because I needed to end it all, but because I needed to start living again and I had finally found something to live for.’

‘So you started planning,’ Hunter said, filling in the blanks.

‘So I started planning,’ Holden confirmed. ‘Getting back to work was easy. My counselor had been pushing me to do it for months. As she had always said — the best thing for me would be to keep busy, to keep my brain occupied. Sitting at home all day would undoubtedly force my mind to wander and, in the state I was in, that wasn’t a good thing. I’d probably be digging through memories of the accident or, even worse, harvesting destructive thoughts, which, without her knowledge, I’d been doing since my family’s funeral. So when I finally agreed, saying that she was right, that keeping busy and returning to work would be good for me, she signed on to the idea with a wide smile. After that, the real work started.’

‘Finding your victims,’ Hunter said, his eyes still on the board in front of him.

‘That’s right. I began browsing through social-media sites, looking for anyone who had, at any time, posted a selfie taken inside a moving vehicle.’ Holden laughed. ‘You’d be surprised by what people post on their pages, Detective, by the pictures they upload. You can find out all sorts of personal information on them, on their friends, on their families, you name it. You can find out about their likes, dislikes, their preferences, where they’re going to be on a certain day and at what time, what they know, what they don’t know, what they should know, but don’t.’ Another animated laugh. ‘Social media sites are like a free market of information on people. Information that they, themselves, freely put out there for others to find.’

‘So your real target was the person taking the selfie,’ Hunter said. ‘The people you called, not the people you killed.’

‘Of course,’ Holden admitted. ‘Killing them would’ve been too easy. That wasn’t the point of the exercise.’

An exercise, Hunter thought. Was that how Holden saw his murders?

‘You know, Detective, I really wish I had died in that car crash, but instead, I got trapped. Did you know that?’

Hunter didn’t. It wasn’t mentioned in any of the reports he’d read.

‘I couldn’t free myself from my seat.’ Holden paused again, long and heavy. When he spoke, his voice was full of grief. ‘My wife and my older daughter didn’t die instantly. It took them almost five minutes to go. I had to watch them die right in front of my eyes without being able to do a thing. I was right there, so close, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach them.’

Hunter breathed in another piece of the puzzle. That had been the reason for the video-calls. Holden wanted his targets to watch the ones they cared for suffer. He wanted them to watch them die, just like he had to watch his family die. He wanted them to feel powerless, just like he had felt that night.

‘I hear my daughter’s voice every night, Detective: “Please help me, Daddy... Please help Mommy.” ’ Holden’s voice croaked. ‘I see their faces every time I close my eyes. Do you understand what sort of destructive feeling comes from being so helpless, Detective?’

Silence.

‘DO YOU?’

Hunter nodded. ‘Guilt.’

One more piece of the puzzle — the reason for the question game. Holden didn’t only want to make his targets watch their loved ones suffer in pain before dying, like he’d had to watch his wife and daughter. He also wanted to give them the false sense of power, the belief that they could save their lives, just so they could experience helplessness in the same way he had. That was where the real pain, the real soul destruction, came from — guilt. It came from the knowledge that they could’ve made all the difference, if only they’d known the answer to a simple question — an answer that they should’ve known. Holden wanted guilt to be a constant part of his targets’ lives, just like it was in his.

Hunter wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to keep his arms up. The pain in his shoulders was starting to blind him. He needed a plan. He needed to think of something and he needed to do it fast.

‘Would you like to know how they died, Detective?’ Holden asked. ‘My family?’

Keep him talking, Hunter thought. Keep him talking.

‘How?’

‘Julie,’ Holden said, ‘my older daughter, was sitting behind my wife. With the impact, she was catapulted forward like a bullet and, despite being strapped in, her head smashed against the passenger’s seat in front of her.’ There was a short pause. ‘Do you know what a splinter fracture is, Detective?’

Hunter closed his eyes as the last piece of the puzzle slotted into place. Holden’s killing methods.

‘Yes... I do.’

‘Her little tiny skull was riddled with them. Her brain got punctured thirteen times.’ Holden coughed as if he had something lodged in his throat.

Hunter’s attention sharpened.

‘Megan,’ Holden continued, ‘my youngest, who was sitting directly behind me, had her face and skull crushed by my seat — like a vise. The crash impact was so violent, my seat broke off its rails and flew back into her. She never had a chance.’

Hunter’s shoulder muscles were now in complete agony, too fatigued to keep his arms up for much longer, but logic told him that if his arms were tired, so were Holden’s.

They’d been talking for around eight minutes now. A three fifty-seven Magnum semi-automatic pistol weighed around two and a half pounds, which, after eight minutes, would add considerably to the effort his arm muscles had to go through to keep Hunter under aim.

‘My wife, Dora, she suffered the worst.’ Holden paused again, as if he had to breathe in the strength to explain it. ‘The impact caused the windshield to explode into the car and on to the two of us, but because my seat broke off its rails and flew back, she took the bulk of the impact. Her face was completely lacerated by glass. It took her around five minutes to bleed to death. All I could do was look at her... and scream... and cry... but I couldn’t get to her. I just couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t get to my babies.’

Holden’s last few words were delivered with a lot of pain and in an almost strangled voice. Hunter couldn’t see it, but he had no doubt that tears had come to his eyes.

Teary eyes, tired arms. It was now or never.

Without being able to turn around to face Holden, Hunter knew that his only chance was to play the odds... and he had to play them blind.

For the past five minutes he’d been listening attentively to Holden’s voice, searching for any sort of oscillation in it, waiting and hoping that the odds would tip his way, even if only for a split second.

Teary eyes, tired arms.

Once again, keeping his head completely still, Hunter’s eyes moved left. Seven feet to the nearest shelving unit — way too far for him to make it... or was it?

From that distance, with his full attention on his target and his gun aimed and ready, Holden just couldn’t miss. Hunter was well aware of that, but teary eyes and tired arms would never add up to full attention and aimed and ready . If Hunter was playing the odds, he had to do it now.