Chapter Four

Outside, the temperature had just hit 65°F, with the sun high on a bright-blue and completely cloudless sky. It hadn't rained in Los Angeles for over two weeks, which had already prompted a barrage of TV, radio and Internet adverts warning everyone about the risks of people inadvertently starting wildfires – something that, unfortunately, tended to hit the City of Angels almost every year during the summer months, causing tremendous destruction, death and loss.

As Hunter and Garcia stepped outside the reception lobby, they both reached for their sunglasses. Garcia's shades were squared, while Hunter's were classic aviators.

‘You look like an FBI agent,' Garcia said, looking Hunter up and down.

‘Really?' Hunter smiled back at him, as he quickly rechecked his attire. ‘Is it the old T-shirt, the faded black jeans or the biker boots that gave you that impression?' He didn't wait for a reply. Instead, he removed his sunglasses and used his index finger to point to his right eye. ‘Look into my eye.' Those words were delivered in an overly deep tone of voice.

‘What the hell was that?' Garcia asked. There was no play in his tone.

‘Me sounding like an FBI agent.'

‘Are you… serious?'

‘Yeah. It's a line from an old movie.'

Garcia's jaw dropped open. ‘You're kidding, right? That line is from Aliens, Robert. Absolutely nothing to do with the FBI. And the sergeant uses his middle finger to point to his eye, not his index one. In other words – he's flipping the bird at the marine. Like this.' He used his middle finger to slightly pull his lower-right eyelid down. ‘Look into my eye.'

Hunter frowned at him. ‘Are you sure that's from Aliens?'

‘Yes, I'm sure. You are hopeless, you know that?'

‘I don't watch a lot of films.'

‘You don't say.'

They got to Garcia's car.

Garcia unlocked his door and got behind the steering wheel. ‘I have to admit that this whole thing is sounding weirder by the minute.'

Hunter took the passenger seat, but stayed quiet, the look on his face pensive.

‘The speculation right now is that we have a victim,' Garcia continued, throwing his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the building behind them, ‘who died somewhere else, potentially murdered, but someone, potentially the killer, or killers, took him way up the mountains, just to make it look like he was run over by a truck.'

‘That pretty much sums it up, yes,' Hunter agreed.

Garcia sat back on his seat and chuckled. ‘I am made of questions right about now.'

‘OK, I'll bite. What's the first question that pops into your head? Right now.'

Behind his shades, Garcia's eyes narrowed at his partner.

‘Don't think,' Hunter prodded. ‘Just ask. What comes to mind first?' He quickly lifted a hand at Garcia. ‘Don't go with the obvious "why was he murdered". Let's skip that one for now.'

‘OK,' Garcia said, giving Hunter a single-shoulder shrug. ‘Why the hell was he tortured?'

Hunter nodded, accepting that that was a good start.

‘Because that's what really happened before he died. He was tortured, Robert. For how long, we have no idea, but he was definitely tortured. Someone ripped his toenails off, one by one. Someone broke six of his fingers, three of his ribs and his left eye socket before sticking him into a freezer… while he was still alive… because there's no other reasonable explanation to how he froze to death in the middle of June in LA. And did you notice that he had no ligature marks?'

Hunter nodded. ‘Not on his wrists, nor on his ankles.'

‘Exactly,' Garcia agreed. ‘It doesn't look like he was restrained at all. His fingernails were all chipped and broken. His fingertips all scratched to shit because he clearly tried clawing his way out of somewhere – probably the freezer that he was locked in. Now… how do you torture someone without restraining them?'

‘Simple. You sedate them.'

Garcia drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘What fucked-up kind of torture is that, where the person doing the torture sedates the victim first?'

‘The pretty horrible kind. Think about it – the victim feels nothing at first. Maybe they are even conscious and can see the perp inflicting the damage – ripping his toenails out, snapping his fingers, all of it – no pain, but the sedation wears off eventually… and that's when the pain starts… slowly… gradually… and it just keeps on coming, from everywhere – feet, hands, arms, legs, face, head, torso – getting stronger and stronger by the second. The perp could torture him an injury at a time, or all at once. It's a horrible way to inflict pain.'

‘That's just fucking insane.' Garcia shook his head. ‘And that takes me back to my question – why was he tortured like that?'

Hunter moved his shades up to his head. ‘Textbook answer to why someone is tortured.' He used his fingers to count. ‘To obtain information; to force the victim to do something the victim didn't want to do; as payback for something; as punishment for something; to extract money; or pure and simple sadism – to fulfill the killer's morbid desire to inflict pain. Some killers get off on that.'

‘Don't I know it?' Garcia dipped his chin to look at Hunter over the rim of his glasses. ‘But the ones who get off on that kind of crap can never limit themselves to a single victim, right? They all ultimately become serial killers because they simply can't stop themselves. They're never completely fulfilled, no matter how many they kill.'

Hunter stayed quiet.

‘But I have no reason to believe that that's the case here. Do you? It just doesn't feel like the work of a serial murderer.'

‘No, it doesn't.'

‘But all the other options you mentioned are a real possibility,' Garcia continued. ‘We know nothing about who Shaun Daniels really was. He could've been a drug dealer, a loan shark, a thief, a business owner… whatever.' He shrugged. ‘Or the other way around – he could've owed money to the wrong person, or have slept with the wrong person's wife, or have told on the wrong person… you know – shit like that can easily get you tortured and killed, especially in a city like LA.'

‘Research is already collecting all they can on him,' Hunter told him. ‘We should have some sort of file on Mr. Daniels by tonight – tomorrow morning, latest – including credit card activity and phone records.'

‘There's something else,' Garcia said. ‘Something that's been bothering me since I read the traffic accident report.'

Hunter studied Garcia's expression for a couple of seconds. ‘How come his car was found up there?'

Garcia's index finger pointed at his partner. ‘Precisely. He didn't drive it up there, that's for sure. If he'd been shot, beaten to a pulp, strangled, whatever… even really run over by a truck, him having driven up there would've been a possibility.'

‘But the victim died from hypothermia,' Hunter said, leaning against the passenger door.

‘That's the wrench in the works,' Garcia agreed. ‘He froze to death hours before he was found, which means – it didn't happen up in the Sierra Pelona Mountains. He didn't drive up there with a lover, or for a drug deal or whatever, and something went wrong. He didn't get ambushed up there either… and he sure as shit didn't freeze his ass to death while walking around Lake Hughes Road.'

‘And yet,' Hunter commented, ‘his car was parked up there.'

‘Which means that someone else drove it up there. Probably the killer… or killers, but even if it wasn't, I'd really like to have a word with whoever it was.'

Hunter nodded as he slid his shades back up his nose. ‘Yeah, me too.'