One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) - Страница 51

The pressure and frustration Ethan was under at work started seeping through into his relationship with his wife, Stephanie, and they started rowing practically every night. Their daughter was almost three then. Ethan was obsessed, depressed and becoming a nervous wreck. That was when Brad Nelson decided to pull the plug on the company. He’d had enough. The arguments had gotten out of hand. He was out of patience and out of money, but not as in debt as Ethan.

The partnership ended badly. Brad refused to sign the papers that would transfer his share of the company to Ethan, and that meant that Ethan could not carry on developing the game on his own. Fifty percent of the game’s intellectual property belonged to Brad, and he declined to let it go. Ethan had no money to hire a lawyer and try to fight Brad in a court of law. If he were to develop a game for the X-Box 360, he would have to forget everything he’d done so far and start a new one from scratch. He didn’t have the means or the mental stamina for that.

Ethan was left completely broke, including his spirit. He didn’t know what to do, but the experience had left him bitter, and he didn’t want to program anymore. He was in so much debt that his only way out was to declare bankruptcy. He lost his house to the bank, and with that the arguments at home intensified. Stephanie moved out and filed for divorce six months ago. She’d taken their daughter with her, and was now living in Seattle with someone she’d met while still married to Ethan.

Ethan missed his daughter like crazy. In the past six months he had seen her only once. His only comfort at the moment was that twice a week he would speak to her on a thirty-minute Internet, face-to-face call, as stipulated by a family court judge.

When Ethan got to the door of his apartment, his breathing was so heavy he sounded like a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner. He fumbled for his keys, opened the door and stepped inside the small, dark and claustrophobic flat.

‘Shit!’ he murmured, checking his watch. It had taken him three minutes to climb up to the fourth floor. His hand found the light switch on the wall, and the old yellow bulb in the center of the ceiling flickered twice before bathing the room in such a weak light it made almost no difference at all. He rushed over to the laptop on the Formica table pushed up against one of the walls, and quickly turned it on.

‘C’mon, c’mon, boot up, you prehistoric brick,’ he urged it, waving both hands at the old computer. When it finally did, he brought up his face-to-face call application and clicked the “call” button. His daughter’s account was already programmed in.

His ex-wife answered it at the other end.

‘You are unbelievable,’ she said, her tone angry. ‘Fifteen minutes late . . .?’

‘Don’t even start, Steph,’ Ethan cut her short. ‘I left work on time, but the bus had a flat. We all had to get out and cram into the next one . . . Anyway, who cares? Why am I wasting my time talking to you? Where’s Alicia?’

‘You’re a jerk,’ Stephanie said. ‘And you look like shit. You could’ve at least combed your hair.’

‘Thank you for the kind words.’ Ethan ran a hand through his fair hair to try to smooth it into place, before using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead. A second later Alicia’s smiley face appeared on his screen.

Alicia was a stunning little girl. Her rosy cheeks and curly blond hair made her look like a cartoon character. Her eyes were deep blue, and their shape gave the impression that she was always smiling, which incidentally she usually was. And it was a smile that could disarm any grown-up.

‘Hi, Daddy,’ Alicia said, waving her hand vigorously at the camera.

‘Hi, sweetheart, how are you?’

‘I’m very well, Daddy.’ She brought her little hand to her mouth and started giggling. ‘You look funny.’

‘Do I? How funny?’

More giggles. ‘Your face looks all red like a big strawberry, and your hair is sticking up like a pineapple.’

‘Well,’ Ethan said. ‘You can call me “fruit salad Daddy” today, then.’

Alicia laughed one of those contagious laughs that people couldn’t help but join in.

Ethan laughed with her.

They talked for another twelve minutes. Ethan felt a knot grow tight in his throat, as he knew he would soon have to say goodbye to Alicia. It would be four days before their next Internet chat.

‘Daddy . . .?’ Alicia said, frowning, her eyes displaying a little confusion.

‘Yes, honey. What is it?’

‘Who is . . .?’

Ethan’s cellphone rang inside his shirt pocket. He always switched it off when he talked to Alicia, but because today he was in a hurry, he’d forgot ten.

‘Just a second, honey,’ he said, reaching for the phone. He didn’t even check the caller display. He simply turned it off and placed it back in his pocket. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. Who is what?’

For some reason Alicia looked scared.

‘Darling, what is it?’

She lifted her little arm and pointed at the camera. ‘Who is that man standing behind you, Daddy?’

Sixty-Seven

Garcia dropped Anna off at her parents’ house in Manhattan Beach and headed straight back to his apartment. As he told Anna, the paranoid cop inside of him was screaming ‘check and recheck’, but logic told him that the killer hadn’t been inside their home.

Garcia and Anna lived on the top floor of a six-story building in Montebello, southwest Los Angeles. They had no balcony or back alley fire escape. The only way in was through the front door. Garcia had worked too many house burglaries as a uniformed cop to know better. He had installed an anti-snap, high-security, ten-lever lock on his door. The lock was extremely resistant against picking and drilling attacks, even from someone with special tools. If somebody had breached that lock, there would be signs everywhere. There were none.

Satisfied, he called Hunter and found out that he was on his way to the FBI headquarters to talk with Michelle. Garcia told him he would meet him there.

Hunter had been waiting for less than five minutes when Garcia pulled into the parking lot behind the FBI building in Wilshire Boulevard.

‘How’s Anna?’ Hunter asked as his partner stepped out of his car. He knew Garcia would have told her the truth.

‘She’s rattled, but you know Anna, she’s putting on a brave face. I left her with her parents until I get back. How did you get on?’

Garcia didn’t have to tell Hunter that no matter what he’d told Anna, she wouldn’t simply pack up and leave Los Angeles. Hunter also knew how determined and committed to her job she was, and though he believed that the killer had targeted Anna solely to prove a point, neither he nor Garcia was prepared to take any chances. They had agreed earlier that since they couldn’t keep an eye on her twenty-four hours a day, somebody would.

‘The paperwork is all done,’ Hunter said. ‘And it’s already been approved by the captain. Anna will have a police escort with her 24/7, until we call it off. A squad car has just been dispatched to your place.’

Garcia nodded but made no comment. The look in his eyes was distant and pensive.

‘Why don’t you go home, Carlos?’ Hunter said. ‘Go pick Anna up and stay with her. She needs you by her side . . . and you need her.’

‘I know I do. And that’s why I’m here. Me being with Anna . . . The best surveillance in the world . . . None of it will make any difference while this psycho is still out there. He proved that today.’ Garcia paused and looked at Hunter. ‘Even the tiniest glimpse into how the mind of a perpetrator works can turn out to be a huge step toward capturing him . . . You taught me that, remember?’