Chapter Sixty-Six

Hunter had been right – the glass-panel door led into a large but relatively empty utilities room. From outside the house, before stepping into the room, Hunter checked the ceiling corners for motion monitors – there were none. He quickly crossed the room to get to the door on the other side, just past a stack of empty cardboard boxes. This new door was made of solid wood – no glass panels. Hunter put his ear against the door and listened for a moment – no sound. He tried the handle – unlocked.

The next room along was the kitchen, which was impressively large, with an asymmetrically designed, black-and-white-checkered floor and plenty of cupboards, both high and low. Once again, before stepping into the room, Hunter checked the ceiling corners for motion monitors and, once again, he found none. The kitchen smelled clean. There was no smell of cooked food, or anything gone out of date.

On the dish rack, Hunter could see only one plate, one glass and one set of cutlery.

The door at the other end of the kitchen was already open – no light beyond it. Hunter got to it and paused, listening from its edge for any sounds coming from the next room, or from deeper inside the house. He got nothing but stillness and silence. No motion monitors again.

The door led into a dining room, with a small four-seater table, a tall, glass-door display unit, an empty drinks cart and not much else. The window on its west wall was one of the two windows at the front of the house. Once again, Hunter cleared the room quickly to get to the next door, to the right of the drinks cart. This door was closed. He placed his ear against it and listened for several long seconds. He couldn't hear a sound. He tried the handle – unlocked.

The dining room linked directly to a sparsely furnished living room, which made the room seem even larger than it already was.

No motion monitors either.

Hunter stepped into the room and allowed his eyes to carefully sweep the space… the shadows… the corners… the hiding spots… for signs of someone else there. He found none. On the east wall, just behind a three-seater sofa, there was a set of French doors that opened onto the back garden and the pool area. The pool was completely empty of water and there didn't seem to be a pool house, or a utilities shed, anywhere. From the sofa, looking back into the room, Hunter could see three doors. The one to his left was the door that he had come in through from the dining room. The door in front of him was already open and he could see that it would take him to the house's entry lobby and give him access to the staircase, leading to the top floor. The door to his right was closed. He tried that one next.

Ear to the door – not a peep.

Door handle – unlocked.

Ceiling corners – no motion monitors.

Hunter stepped into a comfortable office/study room, with a desk that faced a window on the south wall. On the desk, Hunter could see an impressive computer setup, with a triple-monitor.

Hunter walked up to the computer on the desk and pressed down on the space-bar key. All three monitors came alive, displaying different graphics and stock charts – not CCTV camera footage – which was what Hunter was hoping for.

The window on the west wall was the second front-of-the-house window. The other two walls were lined from top to bottom with books in computer programming, economics and trading, and medicine.

Hunter was about to move back into the living room and go try his luck upstairs when he paused… something about that house didn't feel quite right.

Murderers who abducted their victims so they could torture them for days before taking their lives needed a place to do exactly that – keep their victims captive while torturing them for days – and Hunter knew from experience that those types of murderers didn't do that in their bedrooms, regardless of them living alone or not. This killer had probably been taking victims into captivity for years, maybe even decades. From what they'd gathered so far, he was organized and meticulous. Someone like that would have at least a secure room… a room from which his victims would have no chance of escaping… a room in which he could torture them to his heart's content and no one would be able to hear a sound. Such rooms were almost always created either underground or on the ground floor. They rarely existed on higher levels due to logistics.

Sure, Hunter also knew that in the majority of cases where such rooms were found, they existed in remote locations – a cabin in the woods, a hut high on the mountains, a bunker hidden in a forest, a disused warehouse on the outskirts of a town… somewhere isolated enough to give the perp some peace of mind based solely on location. And of course Hunter knew that that could be where this killer was keeping Garcia. But Hunter had to work with what he had, and what he had was the photo in Garcia's cellphone – the black Dodge RAM 3500 that was parked in the garage just outside.

The logical assumption was that that had been the same pickup truck that the perp had used to transport Garcia from the school parking lot, where he was rendered unconscious, to wherever he was being held captive. If Garcia was being held at any other isolated location, how come the 3500 pickup truck was parked in the garage?

Hunter had to work with what he had, and what he had was a horrible gut feeling that he was missing something, and whatever it was that he was missing wouldn't be upstairs. So, in his mind, that left him with only one option – a secret room somewhere.

Since there was no pool house or utilities shed in the house's backyard, Hunter figured that if that house hid a secret room, it would be inside – either behind a wall, or under it – not outside.

Two of the walls in the room that he was in had windows, so they were automatically discarded. The other two were lined from top to bottom with books – very possible – but the east wall, the one with the smaller of the two bookcases, also had the door that he had come in through from the living room. There was no secret room behind that wall. That, once again, left Hunter with only one possibility – the bookcase against the north wall. He approached it and immediately saw a problem – the bookcase wasn't built into the wall. It was built from wooden modules – the build-it-yourself type – probably purchased from some flat-pack, DIY store. Those weren't the type of bookshelves that could hide a Murphy door.

That was when it dawned on Hunter.

The oddly designed kitchen floor.

The kitchen floor resembled a typical, old-style, Italian, black-and-white checkered floor, but its squares were asymmetric – not only in size, but in orientation as well – creating an almost psychedelic effect. Why would anyone want a psychedelic floor in their kitchen?

To hide a trapdoor.That was the first answer that came to Hunter's mind.

He quickly made his way back through the house and into the kitchen.

In there, he stood still for a long while, listening as carefully as he could, while his eyes attentively followed the beam of his flashlight on the floor, slowly moving around like a spotlight following a solo ballerina on stage.

Nothing.

Hunter couldn't hear a sound, and no matter how hard he looked, he also couldn't see any indications of a secret floor panel that could lead him to a secret, underground room.

But just because he couldn't see it, it didn't mean that it wasn't there. Hunter knew that only too well.

After so many years investigating ultra-violent crimes, Hunter had come across a few Murphy doors that had led him into secret rooms. Some were badly built, hidden inside a wardrobe or under a staircase, and were relatively easy to spot, but some had been so expertly created that they were practically impossible to find unless they'd been activated.

Murphy doors were usually activated either by pressing a button that had been hidden somewhere or by pushing a lever; in that kitchen, there were plenty of places to hide both.

Walking over to the high cupboards on the north wall, Hunter used his flashlight to look under them, while feeling the edges and corners with the tips of his fingers. There were five cupboards built against that wall, but Hunter found nothing under them – no button, no lever, no false panel.

Next, he simply opened all the cupboards, took a step back, and paused. Four of them had several items in each – pans, pots, cups, plates, jars, glasses, kitchen utensils, kitchen supplies – all the normal items that he would expect to find in most kitchens – but in one of the cupboards, the first one on the far right, there were only two cans of tuna on the lower shelf. That was it. Nothing else.

Hunter thought about it for a millisecond.

If he had to constantly activate a secret mechanism to release some kind of trapdoor somewhere, he would want quick access to it. If the release mechanism was hidden inside a cupboard, he wouldn't fill that cupboard with stuff, otherwise he would have to move all the stuff out of the way first before getting to the mechanism. Once activated, he would have to move everything back to its original place. And he would have to do that every time he wanted to access his secret room. Not exactly practical.

Hunter returned to the first cupboard and pushed the two cans of tuna to one side.

He couldn't see anything.

Holding his flashlight with his left hand, he used his right one to feel the back panel inside the cupboard.

He pressed its edges, searching for a click-spring mechanism – the most used mechanism for concealed false panels.

He pressed the top edge – nothing.

Bottom edge – nothing.

Center – click.

The panel dislodged.

Hunter's heart stuttered.

He pulled it open to find a lever.

‘Bingo,' he whispered, as he reached for the lever and flipped it down. As he did, he heard a new clicking noise come from behind him. Hunter directed the beam of his flashlight back to the floor and searched, but nothing seemed to have changed. No secret door had sprung open… no black or white square had clicked out of place.

But he had definitely heard a new clicking sound once he flipped the lever.

Must've been another false back panel somewhere.

Behind him, all the cupboards there were located under the sink.

Hunter got down on his knees and opened them all. It took him just a couple of seconds to find it. He was right – a second false panel had sprung open – this one revealing a round, metal button. Hunter pressed it and heard the thump of a lock opening just a few feet to his right.

And there it was.

A secret, heavy and steady floor door, leading down to what Hunter knew would be the killer's torture chamber.

He took a deep breath, checked his weapon and took the stairs down.