Hunter regarded the photographs one more time. ‘Nothing, really. Just something the killer mentioned in his second note.’
This time Garcia didn’t glance at Hunter. He turned to look at him.
‘Shit!’ he said before quoting: ‘“If they looked straight into my eyes, would they see the truth inside them? Would they see what I have become, or would they falter?”’
Garcia had also memorized the killer’s note.
‘I had forgotten about that,’ he admitted. ‘But now that you’ve mentioned it, and looking at those photos, one thing is for damn sure — those eyes can certainly tell a story on their own.’
‘Well, these are just photographs,’ Hunter said, finally closing the file. ‘We’ll get a better idea once we meet him face to face... ’
‘. . and look into his eyes,’ Garcia finished.
Sixty-two
Consciousness returned to Alison like waves breaking over a beach, but the pain was always there whether she was conscious or not. It was an odd kind of pain, a dull ache that started on the left side of her neck and spread with the resolve of soldier ants to the rest of her body, but the worst pain came from her wrists — a burning soreness that felt like her hands were being sawn off with a blunt hacksaw.
Her head was slumped forward with her chin almost touching her chest. During periods of consciousness Alison’s eyes would flicker and every now and then she could see red toenails resting against the floor. It took her some time to realize that they were her own toenails. She had been stripped naked.
Alison had no idea where she was but it was somewhere dark and hot, with thick rubber foam sheets glued to the walls and metal pipes above her head.
Instinctively she tried moving, but that only served to sharpen the pain in her arms. Something dug deeper into her wrists, as if thin metal rods were being forced between her joints and then twisted to one side. The pain quickly moved up her arm before settling on her shoulders. Right then, she truly believed that her arms were being slowly pulled from their sockets.
Trying to better understand what was happening to her, Alison lifted her chin, a movement that sent waves of nausea rippling through her stomach. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her lids flickered again. She had to summon all of her strength not to fall back into the abyss of unconsciousness.
With great effort, Alison managed to focus on her arms, which were stretched high above her head. Only then did she finally understand why they hurt so much. Her wrists were shackled by a metal chain speckled with blood. The chain had been looped over a thick metal pipe that ran across the ceiling. All of her weight was being supported by her thin arms and the chain was biting deeply into her bloody wrists.
Time dragged interminably. She tried to remember what had happened. Why was she in this hellhole? But the incessant throbbing in her head made thinking an impossible task. Her throat had swollen up so much that she had to practically force every breath into her lungs, and that had caused her mouth to go bone dry.
Braving the pain, Alison looked up once again and studied her restraints as best as she could. The chain around her wrists was fastened by a small, brass padlock. A bigger padlock kept the loop around the ceiling pipe in place.
What the hell is going on? Where was she?
Nothing made sense.
Her eyes had gotten a little more used to the poor lighting, enabling her to look around her surroundings. The floor of the room she was in was made of concrete. It was covered in stains of different sizes but Alison couldn’t tell what had created them — oil, water, blood?
Over to her left she saw a short flight of stairs leading up to a closed door. There were no windows in the room, which led her to believe that she was in some sort of sordid basement. To her right, a little more hidden in the shadows, she could see part of a workshop table. Several tools and instruments were lying on its surface. She couldn’t make them all out but the ones she saw froze her heart — a circular handheld sander, a pair of bolt cutters, pruning shears, a bullwhip and a selection of medical scalpels and forceps.
She tried to use her feet to push herself up and lessen the stress on her arms but they could barely touch the ground. All she could do was teeter on her toes. The effort produced the exact opposite effect to the one she was looking for, straining her arms even further. The pain made her scream, but the rubber foam that lined the walls muffled the noise as if she were underwater.
But somebody heard her, because seconds later the door at the top of the stairs opened and a male figure was framed in the light behind it. He stood there, in silence, for a moment. His strong arms hung loosely by his sides.
‘Wh... who are you?’ she breathed out, but her voice sounded so weak she was unsure he had heard her. She tried again. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
No reply. No movement.
That only served to fill Alison with even more terror.
‘Please... please.’
The figure finally reached for a light switch on the outside of the door and a fluorescent bulb, encased in a metal box on the ceiling, blinked into life, flooding the basement with light.
Alison immediately looked away, squeezing her eyes tight to protect them from the sudden brightness. Seconds later, she tried to focus on the figure by the door. His shoes clicked against the stairs as he made his way down to the basement floor. Alison’s gaze followed him.
‘Please. What do you want from me? Who are you? Why am I here?’
The man walked over to the workshop table in the shadows and paused, facing her. They locked eyes for a long moment.
‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’ he finally said. His voice was deep, cold and guttural — and overflowing with confidence. His posture was firm and strong, like a warrior’s ready for battle.
Alison concentrated. No, she didn’t recognize him, but she also couldn’t shake the feeling that something about him was very familiar to her, especially his eyes.
She didn’t have to answer him. He knew she didn’t recognize him. His disguises were always flawless.
He turned toward the workshop table and reached for something Alison couldn’t see.
‘Let me ask you something, Alison.’
The man began unbuttoning his shirt.
Alison felt her body begin to convulse with fear.
‘Oh no, no, no.’
He allowed the pause to linger on, stretching the suspense.
‘How much do you know about pain?’
He turned to face her.
Her eyes locked on to the object he was holding in his hand and her voice completely failed her.
‘Because I know... everything.’
Sixty-three
‘OK, this is it,’ Garcia said as he parked his car right in front of an old three-storey construction located halfway down a relatively busy road. The building looked tired and in serious need of some attention. Most of the windows looked like they’d never been cleaned, at least not on the outside, and what should’ve been a front lawn looked more like the remains of an old battlefield.
It didn’t get any better on the inside.
The wooden door at the entry lobby creaked loudly as Hunter pushed it open, revealing a small and poorly lit room that smelled of a thousand ashtrays. Water infiltration stains marked the ceiling like freckles on a face. Some of that water had lazily traveled down one of the walls, pushing itself behind the wallpaper and creating blisters that looked ready to pop at any minute. Cigarette burn marks formed an interesting pattern on the old and dirty rug that centered the room.
‘Nice. Classy,’ Garcia said as he and Hunter stepped inside.
It seemed like the creepy sound generated by the hinges on the old front door was used as a shop bell, because as soon as the noise came to a stop, an overweight Hispanic-looking man promptly appeared behind the counter on the south wall. He smelled of spiced refried beans and Taco sauce, and his greasy hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead as if he’d just finished the toughest exercise session ever known to man.