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down, bringing his mouth to the table. He first sucked all the milk off the table surface, before using his tongue and lips to collect each cornflake that had spilt out of the
bowl.
    ‘The floor too,’ the man demanded, indicating it with his index finger. ‘You better eat that up right now, or else . . .’ He began undoing his belt.
    In a flash, Squirm got down on his hands and knees and began sucking the milk from the floor. When he was done, he once again used his tongue and lips to collect the cornflakes.
    ‘I want that floor looking just the way it did before you dirtied it. I want it shining, do you understand?’
    ‘Yes, sir. I’ll mop it again, sir.’
    ‘No. I don’t want you to mop it again. The privilege of using a mop is gone. I want you to lick it clean.’
    Squirm paused for just a moment.
    Slam.
    The belt hit Squirm across the middle of his back so hard that his already weak arms gave in and his head went crashing against the floor, making his eyes flutter.
    ‘Did I stutter, Squirm? I said lick . . . the . . . floor.’
    Anger thickened the air.
    It took Squirm a moment to regain his balance and get rid of the dizziness. Without another ounce of hesitation, he began licking the floor where he had spilt his cornflakes.
    ‘That’s right, Squirm, nice, long strokes.’ The man walked over to the table, grabbed the cereal bowl and emptied the rest of its contents on to the floor. ‘Now finish
your breakfast,’ he said, laughing.
    Squirm never stopped. He carried on licking every drop of milk and every tiny piece of cornflake from the floor. When he was done with the cornflakes, the man made him lick the entire kitchen
floor. By the time he was done, Squirm’s tongue was bleeding.

Eight
    Hunter and Garcia flipped open the murder file that Captain Blake had given them. This one also began with a photograph, but this time it wasn’t a portrait. It showed
Nicole Wilson’s body as it had been found in the early hours of the morning. She was dressed in blue jeans, a black T-shirt under a half-unzipped light-gray California State University
sweatshirt and black sneakers – no socks. She had no makeup on, and her hair looked wet, with the fringe plastered against her forehead. There was no blood on her, on her clothes, or on the
ground surrounding the body. No cuts or wounds were visible either. No apparent cause of death, but Hunter and Garcia immediately understood why Captain Blake was so concerned. The body had been
left lying on its back on an empty green patch of grass. The arms were stretched out to her sides in a horizontal line, palms facing up. The legs had also been stretched out and pulled apart as far
as they would go, creating a V shape. The overall image was of a human star and that was what sent alarm bells ringing. From experience, they all knew that specific body positioning hinted strongly
at one thing – ritual. And ritual killers rarely struck only once.
    The next photograph was a close-up of Nicole’s face. Her skin had turned a light shade of purple and acquired a waxy, semi-shiny texture. Her lips had gone white from the lack of blood
circulation, and even though her eyes were closed Hunter could tell that they had already begun to sink a little deeper into her skull. But what most caught the LAPD detective’s attention
were the abrasions at the edges of her mouth, together with the small patch of skin that began at the corner of her lips, ran across her cheeks and disappeared behind her neck. It showed a very
slight change of color, a little darker than the rest of the skin on her face, and that indicated that she’d been gagged with an overly tight restraint.
    Hunter slowly flipped through the next few pictures and paused when he came to the ones showing a close-up of Nicole’s hands and feet. The skin around her wrists and ankles showed
abrasions and a change of color that were similar to the ones on her face, but the marks were a lot more prominent around her