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Ultra-Violent.
    ‘Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence,’ Baxter came back. ‘Maybe he wanted Robert on the case, and this was his way of making sure he got him.’
    Captain Blake’s eyes widened a little, waiting for Baxter to carry on. He did.
    ‘Robert’s name has been in the papers and on TV plenty of times. He’s worked on most of the department’s high-profile cases for the past . . . I don’t know how many years, and he usually gets his guy.’
    Captain Blake couldn’t argue with that. Hunter’s name had been in the papers again just a few months ago, when he and Garcia closed the investigation into a serial killer the press had dubbed The Sculptor.
    ‘Maybe the caller picked Robert because of his reputation,’ Baxter said. ‘Maybe he read his name in the LA Times or saw his face on the evening news.’ He indicated the captain’s computer screen. ‘You saw the footage; you heard the call recording, right? This guy is cocky and challenging. He’s daring. He stayed on the phone for that long because he knew we wouldn’t be able to trace the call. He knew we wouldn’t be able to track down his web transmission either.’ Baxter paused and scratched his nose. ‘He forced Robert to choose how the victim was going to die, for chrissakes, and then threw a twist into it. It’s like he’s playing a game. And he doesn’t want to play it against just any detective. He wants a challenge. He wants the one the papers talk about.’
    The captain thought about it for an instant. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s all we need, a new psycho playing catch me if you can .’
    ‘No,’ Hunter replied. ‘He’s playing catch me before I kill again. ’

Nine
    Hunter and Garcia’s office was a 22-square-meter concrete box at the far end of the Robbery Homicide Division’s floor. It didn’t have much more than two desks, three old-fashioned filing cabinets and a large white magnetic board that doubled up as an investigation pictures board, but it felt claustrophobic nonetheless.
    Back at their desks, both detectives watched the Internet footage and listened to the telephone recording over and over again. Baxter had supplied Hunter and Garcia with a software application that allowed them to advance the recorded footage frame by frame. And that was exactly what they’d been doing for the past four and a half hours, analyzing every inch of every frame, looking for anything that could give them any sort of clue, no matter how small.
    The camera work concentrated mainly on the glass enclosure and on the man inside it. Every once in a while it would zoom in onto the victim’s face, or something floating on the bloody water. It had broken that pattern only once, when it panned right to show the wall clock and today’s copy of the LA Times.
    The wall was made of red bricks and mortar. It could’ve been anywhere – a basement, a backyard shed, a room inside a house or even a small garage in some godforsaken place.
    The clock fixed to the wall was a round battery clock of about 13 inches in diameter with a black frame. It had an easy-to-read white dial with Arabic numerals, black minute and hour hands and a red second hand. There was no manufacturer’s name on its face. Hunter sent a snapshot of the clock to his research team, but he knew that the chances of their linking it to a specific shop, and then identifying the buyer, were almost impossible.
    The floor was nondescript and made of concrete. Again, it could’ve been just about anywhere.
    The screen print Hunter took of his desktop came out perfect. The man sitting inside the glass enclosure was looking directly at the camera. Hunter had already emailed the picture to the Missing Persons Unit. The agent he spoke to on the phone told him that because of the gag wrapped tight around the victim’s mouth, the face recognition software would only be able to analyze a limited number of facial comparison points. If the man had indeed been reported missing, it could still be