Read The Night Stalker for Free Online Page B

body’s location, remember?’
    Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, and I listened to the 911 recording. It’s a girl’s voice. Not older than sixteen or seventeen, and she sounded hysterical. The reason why she didn’t wanna give us her name is probably because she was going into that room to shoot up.’
    ‘OK, so the girl didn’t touch the body,’ the captain said, accepting his theory. ‘But maybe you’re reading too much into this message. Maybe the killer didn’t put a great deal of thought into it. So he wrote you instead of her , no big deal.’
    It was Garcia’s turn to disagree. ‘That would suggest that the writing on the ceiling was a spur-of-the-moment thing, Captain.’ He rubbed the lump on his nose. ‘We’re talking about someone who put together his own explosive device and probably engineered the trigger mechanism himself. He then placed it all inside the victim in some way that it wouldn’t be triggered until found and extracted. All of that while she was still alive.’ He shook his head and faced the pictures board. ‘Whatever this killer did, Captain, nothing was on the spur of the moment. He thought it all through. And that’s what makes him so dangerous.’

 
Fourteen
     
    Captain Blake let out a frustrated breath and started pacing the room. Her high heels clicked against the wooden floor.
    ‘It doesn’t make any sense. If the victim was still alive when she was left in that butcher’s shop, and the message on the ceiling was meant for her, how come she was dead when we found her? Who killed her, the rats?’ She pulled a photograph from the board and studied it for a moment. ‘Independently of whatever happened to the victim, the fact still remains that someone placed a bomb inside her and stitched her shut. The only way of getting that bomb out was to cut through the stitches and pull it out.’ She paused and allowed her eyes to move from one detective to the other. ‘Don’t tell me you think the killer expected the victim to do that by herself?’
    No one replied.
    Hunter massaged the back of his neck, and for a moment allowed his fingers to rub the rough scar on his nape.
    The captain turned towards him. ‘I know you, Robert. If you think the message was left for the victim instead of us, you must have a theory on this. I’m all ears.’
    ‘I don’t have a proper theory yet, Captain, just too many ifs.’
    ‘You’ve gotta have something brewing in that brain of yours,’ the captain pushed. ‘Indulge me, because right now I hate what I’m hearing.’
    Hunter took a deep breath. ‘Maybe the bomb’s how the killer wanted her to die.’
    Captain Blake’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think the bomb was supposed to blow up inside her, while she was still alive?’
    Hunter tilted his head to one side, musing over the possibility.
    Captain Blake sat down in Hunter’s chair. ‘You’re going to have to develop on that, Robert. If this killer thought everything through so thoroughly as Garcia has suggested, and if the bomb was supposed to blow up inside the victim as you’re suggesting, why didn’t it? What happened? Did the killer make a mistake? How would the trigger mechanism be activated while the bomb was inside her? And if he didn’t kill her, how the hell did she die?’
    ‘As I said, too many ifs, Captain,’ Hunter replied calmly. ‘And at the moment I don’t have the answers. With everything that’s happened, we don’t have much to go on. I don’t know if the killer made a mistake or not. I don’t know why the bomb didn’t blow up inside her, or how it was supposed to be activated in the first place. Without the autopsy report we’ll probably never know the real cause of death. What we do know is that it’s nothing apparent. She wasn’t shot, stabbed, or strangled. I also don’t believe she was poisoned.’ He paused. ‘But there’s a possibility she suffocated.’
    Captain Blake threw Hunter a perplexed look. ‘How’s that?’
    Hunter pointed to an enlarged