Chapter Fifty-Six

At that time at night and with sirens blasting, Hunter covered the eight miles that separated North Long Beach from Watts in just under ten minutes. The GPS coordinates that Milton had simultaneously sent to his cellphone and car satnav system took Hunter to Firth Boulevard and the entrance to the Thomas Riley High School car park.

The whole parking lot sat in semi-darkness, with only two lampposts operating. The first was located on the boulevard, just outside the car-park entrance gates. The second was by one of the school buildings, all the way on the other side of the lot. Garcia's car was parked about halfway between the two lampposts, practically hidden in the shadows. Parked directly behind it was an LAPD black-and-white unit. Its flashing lights were on and Hunter could see two uniformed officers outside their vehicle. They seemed to be checking Garcia's Honda Civic.

Hunter parked by the police cruiser and immediately stepped out of his car. As he did, the officer standing by the Honda's driver's door turned to face him.

‘You've got to be kidding me, right?' the officer said, his eyes widening at Hunter, as the beam of his flashlight moved over to the detective.

It was only then that Hunter realized that the officer was Emiliano Esqueda.

‘What's going on here?' Emiliano asked, his gaze firmly on Hunter.

The second officer, who had been peeking into Garcia's car through the passenger window, straightened his body and adjusted his cap on his head.

‘That's Detective Garcia's car,' Hunter replied, nodding at it. ‘You remember him, right?'

Emiliano nodded back.

‘How long have you been here for?' Hunter asked.

‘We just got here.' Emiliano glanced at the other officer.

‘About a minute before you,' he confirmed.

‘We got a radio in from Dispatch for a possible officer in distress,' Emiliano explained, giving Hunter a shrug and broadly gesturing at the car park. ‘None of that here, except this lonely vehicle. We were just checking it, when you arrived.'

Hunter approached Garcia's car. The driver's window was wide open, but he saw no signs of a break-in or a struggle. There was no blood on the door… no blood on the seats… no blood on the ground outside the car either. On the passenger seat, Hunter saw his partner's cellphone.

‘Have you checked the trunk yet?' Hunter asked.

‘Like I've said,' Emiliano replied. ‘We just got here. We were just about to check the car when you arrived. We haven't touched anything yet.'

‘Good,' Hunter said, walking back to his car to collect three pairs of latex gloves. ‘This is possibly the scene of an officer's abduction. So be very careful with whatever you touch.' He handed them each a pair of gloves.

‘An officer's abduction?' Emiliano asked, his eyes bouncing from Hunter to the second officer, then back to Hunter. ‘From here?'

Hunter rounded the car and pulled open the passenger door. ‘Detective Garcia was attending a support-group meeting at this school earlier this evening.' He reached for Garcia's cellphone. ‘He was supposed to message me once the meeting was over, which happened over an hour ago. He didn't.'

‘A support-group meeting?' Emiliano turned to look back at the school building. ‘What kind of support group?'

‘It's part of an ongoing investigation,' Hunter explained. ‘We were both attending meetings undercover.'

Hunter pressed a side button on Garcia's cellphone to wake it up and tapped its screen. He and Garcia had long ago shared their cellphone and computer login passwords, just in case something like this ever happened.

‘So you think that someone who was also at the meeting took him?' the second officer asked.

‘That would be the logical deduction.' Hunter nodded.

On Garcia's cellphone, he navigated to the text application that they always used and checked the last message Garcia had sent him. It was a message from the previous evening, after Garcia's support-group meeting had ended – And again… nope… nothing tonight. See you in the morning.

Hunter checked the last call out. It had been made to Anna, Garcia's wife, that evening, at 7:09 p.m.

Hunter had just placed Garcia's cellphone into his pocket when a short and stumpy, Indian American man exited the school building and made his way to where they were standing.

‘Is there some sort of problem here?' he asked, as he got nearer.

‘Who are you?' Hunter asked in return.

‘I'm Pakesh, the school caretaker,' the man replied, his gaze rounding the group, his index finger pointing back at the school building. ‘I was coming over to lock the gate to the parking lot when I saw the police lights.'

‘Are there any CCTV cameras on this parking lot, Pakesh?' Hunter asked, not holding out much hope. From where he was standing, he couldn't see any.

‘No, nothing here,' the caretaker replied. ‘This is a very quiet school.'

‘Women only, right?' Emiliano said, with a nod.

‘That's right,' Pakesh confirmed. ‘It's a special school for pregnant minors and teen mothers – part of the LA Unified School District. We have a few CCTV cameras in the building, down a few of its corridors, but that's all.'

Hunter breathed out as he pressed the release button for the glove compartment in Garcia's car. In there, he found his partner's weapon and badge.

This was bad – whoever had taken Garcia had clearly taken him by surprise because he didn't even have a chance to reach for his gun. The perpetrator was also intelligent enough to leave Garcia's cellphone and the car behind. Now, there was no way that they could GPS-track him.

‘Did you know that there was a support-group meeting happening at the school tonight?' Hunter asked Pakesh.

‘Yes,' Pakesh nodded. ‘That's Mrs. Kimura's support group. Teresa Kimura, but she likes to be called Tessa. She's a very nice lady. Been running the group here every Friday evening for years.'

‘Do you know which classroom they used for the meeting tonight?' Hunter asked.

‘Yes,' Pakesh replied, turning to face the school building once again. ‘Classroom 233, right in that building, over there.'

‘Any CCTV cameras on that corridor?' Hunter again.

‘Yes, but it's switched off.'

‘What's the point of a security camera if it's switched off?' Emiliano asked.

‘Tessa's request,' Pakesh replied. ‘For the anonymity of her members.'

‘What support group is it?' Emiliano again. ‘Who is it supporting?'

‘It's a group to help people struggling with domestic violence,' Pakesh confirmed.

Emiliano's eyes darted toward Hunter, who calmly turned to address Pakesh again.

‘As the group was leaving the meeting earlier this evening, did you happen to see anything out of the ordinary?'

‘Out of the ordinary?' Pakesh looked unsure.

‘Anything strange,' Emiliano tried to clarify. ‘An argument, maybe? Some kind of altercation between two or more of the group members? A fight here in the parking lot? Loud shouting? Anything?'

The caretaker shook his head, yet again. ‘I didn't even see the group leaving tonight. I was in the other building, fixing a few desks.' He shrugged it off. ‘I'm good with things like that, you know? DIY stuff.'

Hunter straightened his body and looked around the empty parking lot, his mind racing through the few options he had.

He could get in touch with the support-group moderator, Teresa Kimura, but how could she help? Just like with every support group that he and Garcia had attended in the past two weeks, Hunter was sure that Teresa Kimura didn't keep an attendance sheet. There was no roll call and no name-checking. Even if she remembered everyone who had been at her group meeting that evening, how would that help? What could she do? Give a sketch artist six, eight… ten different sketches? And how long would it take the LAPD to track them all down?

Hunter shook his head at himself. The best he could do was to get a forensics team to that parking lot as fast as he could and hope that they could lift something from Garcia's car – maybe a fingerprint from one of the doors, or a hair follicle from somewhere inside the vehicle, but that too was a shot in the dark.

Garcia took good care of his car, but Hunter knew that he hadn't had time to have it washed in at least a couple of weeks. Forensics could come up with tens of different fingerprints and/or DNA profiles. And all of that took time… a lot more time than Garcia had.

From experience, Hunter knew that when a perp took a police officer hostage, there were basically only two reasons for that. Either the perp would use the officer as a bargaining chip, if he found himself pressed into a corner, or that officer would be murdered. And since this perp wasn't being pressed into any corners, why would he use Garcia as a bargaining chip?