They both made their way around toward the back of the house. The fence to the right of the garage wasn’t just for decoration like the one up front. This one was solid wood and about eight feet high, with a sturdy-looking door. Hunter tried the door handle. The door clicked open.
‘That’s not a good sign,’ Garcia said.
They walked through to the house’s ample patio, where a rectangular swimming pool was its main feature. Four sun loungers were arranged on one side of the pool. A small shelter at the north end of the patio housed a barbecue grill. The house was to their right, where the entire back facade was completely made of glass. There were two sliding doors leading back into the house. One led back into the living room, the other back into a bedroom. The one closer to them, leading back into the bedroom, was wide open. They started moving toward it, and at that exact moment a strong gust of wind blew east, in the direction of the house. The floral curtain behind the open door flew back just enough for them to catch a glimpse of the inside of the room. It was enough to make both detectives stop and look at each other.
‘I’ll call forensics,’ Garcia said, reaching for his phone.
The room was large and comfortable, overflowing with girly touches – from the pink dresser to the stuffed toys – but it looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. The toys, the bed pillows and several colorful cushions were scattered all over the floor. The bed covers had been partially pulled off, as if someone had grabbed at them with both hands while being forcefully dragged away from the bed. The bed itself was twisted out of position, and that had knocked the bedside table on its side. The bedside lamp had hit the floor and shattered into tens of tiny pieces. A bottle of Dom Ruinart 1998 champagne was tipped over, lying next to the bedside table. Most of the bubbly liquid had spilled out onto the floor. Some of it had seeped through the wooden floorboards; the rest had pretty much evaporated, leaving just a tiny pool by the bottle’s neck. A smashed champagne flute was lying just inches away from the bottle.
The pink dresser looked as if somebody had kicked it in a fit of rage. Perfume flasks and hair product bottles had been knocked over, and most of them were now on the floor, together with an MP3 speaker docking system, a hair dryer and various makeup items. The dresser mirror was cracked. Though they hadn’t found any blood anywhere yet, the entire room screamed one word at everyone –
A forensics agent in white Tyvek hooded coveralls was dusting the glass door that Hunter and Garcia had found wide open. A second agent was slowly moving about the place, tagging and photographing every item in the room. Mike Brindle was working the bed and the area immediately around it.
Hunter and Garcia had also suited up in hooded coveralls, and were now checking the living room. The space was pleasantly decorated. The furniture was elegant and expensive-looking. A well-equipped open-plan kitchen was located at the south end of the room. To the right of the front door, three portraits were arranged next to a bowl of fake fruit on top of a stylish black sideboard.
The living room and the kitchen were in perfect order. Nothing seemed out of place. The struggle had happened only inside the bedroom.
They had found Christina Stevenson’s bag on the floor by the sideboard. Her wallet was in there, together with her driver’s license, her credit cards, her car keys and her cellphone, which had run out of battery.
Garcia was looking around the kitchen when his smart-phone beeped.
‘We’ve got a file on Ms. Stevenson,’ he announced, checking his email application.
Hunter was studying the three pictures on the sideboard. One was of Christina sitting on a beach somewhere. In the second one, a kind-faced woman with vivid blue eyes and full lips was smiling. Christina had definitely inherited her mother’s eyes, strong nose, high cheekbones and the small mole under her bottom lip. The woman on the picture had an almost identical one. The last picture showed Christina in a black and gray cocktail dress, holding a glass of champagne and talking to an elegantly dressed group of people.
‘What do we have?’ Hunter asked, turning to face Garcia.
‘OK, I’ll skip what we already know,’ Garcia said. ‘Christina Stevenson was born right here in LA. She grew up in Northridge, where she lived with her mother, Andrea. No brothers or sisters. Her father is unknown, and according to this, Christina never had a legal stepfather. Her mother never married. She went to Granada Hills High School, and it looks like she was a good enough student – good grades, never in trouble. She was part of the cheerleaders’ team from her sophomore to her senior year.’ Garcia scrolled down on his phone application. ‘Her mother died of a brain aneurysm seven years ago, on the exact same day Christina received her degree in journalism from UCLA.’
Reflexively Hunter’s gaze returned to the portrait of the smiling woman on the sideboard.
‘It looks like her mother’s death knocked the life out of her,’ Garcia moved on. ‘Because we’ve got nothing for a whole year here. After that, she managed to land an intern’s job with the
‘Was she always with the entertainment desk?’ Hunter asked.
‘Nope. She spent four years jumping from desk to desk – city, international, politics, economy, current affairs, crime, even sports. She only settled into her own when she joined the entertainment desk two years ago. Never married. No kids. There’s no mention of any boyfriends here either. No records of drug use. They’re still checking her financial records, but the mortgage on this house is almost paid off. She earned a very decent salary from the paper.’ Garcia scrolled down a little more. ‘She had a big story published yesterday, in the Sunday edition of the
‘Listen to this. It was a scoop on a Hollywood celebrity who’d been fooling around with her kid’s teacher while her husband, who is also a celebrity, was away, recording the latest episodes for the TV series he stars in. The story made the front cover of the entertainment supplement, with a sizable “call” on the paper’s front page.’ Garcia put his smartphone away. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s the kind of story that can get you a whole bunch of new enemies. The kind that can break up marriages and destroy lives.’
‘Who was the celebrity?’ Hunter asked.
Before Garcia could answer, Mike Brindle poked his head through the living-room door. ‘Robert, Carlos, you better come have a look at this.’
Sitting at her computer, Michelle brought up Bobby’s case file. On its front page she right-clicked on the empty square in the top right-hand corner that said ‘‘photo file’’, and selected ‘add’ from the pop-up menu. Harry Mills had already transferred a series of mugshots taken after Bobby’s arrest into the FBI’s mainframe computer. Michelle selected one, and clicked ‘add’.
She then placed the cursor over the ‘Name’ field and typed in Bobby’s real name –
Unfortunately there were way too many ‘Bobbys’ out there, stalking social network sites, chat rooms, games websites or wherever kids would gather to socialize in cyberspace. Michelle and the FBI CCD were doing the best they could, but the simple truth was that they were hugely outnumbered, and the ratio grew the wrong way year after year. She knew that putting Bobby away was only a small victory in a war they’d been losing since the early days of the Internet, but even so it was days like today that made the fight worthwhile.
‘You OK?’ Harry asked, coming up behind her.
‘I’m great.’ She clicked the ‘save’ button.
‘How’s the lip?’
Michelle brought her fingertips to her swollen bottom lip. ‘It hurts a little, but I’ll live. A small price to pay for sending one more scumbag to prison.’
‘And I hope he rots in there.’
Michelle chuckled, more out of relief than amusement. ‘With what we have on him, I’m sure he will.’
It had taken the FBI less than two hours to discover the small hotel Bobby had booked for the day. It was only three blocks away from Venice Beach, where he was arrested. Inside the room they had found personal documents, credit cards, money, sex paraphernalia, pills, alcohol and a small, medicine-sized bottle containing some clear liquid. The bottle was already with the FBI forensics lab, and everyone had their money on the liquid testing positive for some sort of homemade date-rape drug, like gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. But the real finding came from a small black case by the bed. Inside it they’d found Bobby’s personal laptop computer with hundreds of images and video clips, together with a digital video camera.
To Michelle’s delight, Bobby hadn’t had a chance to transfer the contents of the camera’s memory card to his laptop – an unedited, twelve-minute video clip filmed only two days ago. The clip clearly showed Bobby with a girl who looked no older than eleven.
‘So,’ Harry said. ‘You’re coming out to celebrate, right? We’re all going to Baja for a few drinks, and maybe some food.’
Baja was a Mexican grill-restaurant and bar just two blocks away from the FBI building.
Michelle glanced at her watch. ‘Sure, but why don’t you guys go ahead and I’ll meet you there in about forty minutes or so. I just want to have another look at that crazy footage we recorded on Friday. You know, that woman inside that glass coffin . . . that whole voting thing.’
Harry gave her a feeble smile. He knew they had thrown everything they had at that transmission while the stream was live, but they’d gotten nowhere. Every path had led to a dead end. The FBI CCD was rarely blocked out of an Internet transmission so professionally, and their “failure” to find a way in had pissed Michelle off in a way Harry had only seen once before. She simply didn’t know how to accept defeat.
‘What are you hoping to find, Michelle?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing.’ She avoided eye contact. ‘Maybe the killer is
‘Yes, it is, Harry.’ She finally looked at him with something burning in her eyes. ‘Because if he’s better than we are . . . if he wins and we lose, people die . . . in a very grotesque way.’
Harry lifted both hands in a surrender gesture, but he knew Michelle wasn’t angry with him. ‘Would you like some help?’
Michelle smiled. ‘I’ll be OK. You know me. Go celebrate with everyone, and I’ll be down in a little while. And don’t get too drunk before I get there.’
‘Oh, I can’t promise you that.’ He started moving toward the door.
‘Harry,’ she called. ‘Order me a Caipirinha, will you? Extra lime.’
‘You bet.’
‘I won’t be long.’
Harry turned away from Michelle and smiled at himself. ‘Yeah, I bet you won’t,’ he muttered.
From a very early age, Michelle had always been great with computers, something that not even she could explain. It was like her brain was wired differently, patched up to make even the most complicated lines of machine code read like a nursery rhyme.
Michelle Kelly was born in Doyle, northern California. Her father passed away when she was only fourteen years old. A smoker since his early teens and with a weak immune system, he had contracted pneumonia while he struggled to get over a very bad cold. Her mother, a timid and submissive woman, who had always dreaded being alone, remarried a year later.
Michelle’s stepfather was a violent drunk, who very soon transformed her low-self-esteem mother into a drug-taking, alcohol-drinking zombie. Despite trying hard, Michelle was powerless to stop her mother from becoming a wreck.
Late one night, six months after her stepfather moved in, he carefully pushed open the door to Michelle’s bedroom and stepped inside. Her mother was passed out in the living room, after consuming three-quarters of a bottle of vodka.
Michelle jerked awake as her stepfather threw his large, sweaty and naked body on top of her, her heart racing in her chest, her breath rasping in her throat, confusion and terror lighting her eyes. He cupped his meaty hand over her mouth, pushed her head hard into the pillow and whispered in her ear,‘Shhhh, don’t fight it, babe. You gonna like this. I promise you. I’m gonna school you on what a real man feels like. And very soon you’ll be begging me for more.’