One by One Read Online Free PDF

enough for a match, but they had to wait and see. Hunter told the agent to search for entries dating back only a week. He had a feeling that the caller hadn’t kidnapped and kept the victim for more than a day or two before throwing him into that glass tank. Victims kept in captivity for anywhere over forty-eight hours always showed signs of it – exhausted and drained face and eyes from lack of sleep, or spaced-out eyes from being doped. Personal hygiene also suffered considerably, and there were always the inevitable signs of malnourishment. The victim inside that tank had displayed none of it.
    ‘There’s nothing here,’ Garcia said, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his exhausted eyes. ‘There was nothing in that room except that water tank, the victim, the clock, the newspaper and the camera that broadcast the whole thing. This guy isn’t stupid, Robert. He knew we would be recording the broadcast and then scrutinizing it to hell.’
    Hunter breathed out before also rubbing his tired eyes. ‘I know.’
    ‘I, for one, can’t watch this anymore.’ Garcia got up and walked over to the small window on the west wall. ‘The desperate, pleading look in the victim’s eyes . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Every time I look at them I can feel his fear crawling up my skin like a fire centipede. And there’s nothing I can do but watch him die again, and again, and again. It’s screwing with my mind.’
    Hunter was also sick of the footage. What really turned his stomach inside out was watching how the man’s face had lit up with hope once he realized the water had stopped. And then, just a minute later, how his eyes burned with terrifying dread, as the liquid surrounding his whole body started burning and eating away at his skin and flesh. Hunter could pinpoint the exact moment the man gave up the fight, as he finally understood that he would never be getting out of there alive. The killer was just toying with him.
    ‘Did you pick up anything from his tone of voice or something?’ Garcia asked.
    ‘No. He was calm throughout the whole conversation, except for when he yelled at me to make a choice. Other than that there were no angry bursts, no overexcitement, nothing. He was always in control of his emotions and of the conversation.’ Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘But there’s one thing that bothers me.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘When I told him that he didn’t have to do that.’
    Garcia nodded. ‘He said that he knew he didn’t, but he wanted to. He said that it would be fun.’
    ‘That’s right, and that could indicate that the victim was nobody in particular. Probably a complete random choice.’
    ‘So this guy is just another fucking psycho, killing people for kicks.’
    ‘We don’t know yet,’ Hunter replied. ‘The problem is – when I told him that I couldn’t make a decision because I didn’t know why the victim was being held captive, the caller told me that that was something I would have to find out for myself.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And that would indicate that the victim wasn’t a totally random choice. That there was a specific reason why he was chosen, but he wasn’t about to tell us.’
    ‘So he’s literally fucking with us.’
    ‘We don’t know yet,’ Hunter said again before pushing himself away from his desk, checking his watch and letting out a deflated breath. ‘But I’m through with this as well.’ He powered down his computer. The same helpless feeling that had overtaken him when he was watching the live broadcast returned, burning an empty hole inside his chest. There was nothing else they could squeeze out of that Internet footage or audio recording. Right now, all they could hope for was some sort of development from the Missing Persons Unit.

Ten
    Hunter sat in the dark, staring out the living-room window of his small one-bedroom apartment in Huntington Park. He lived alone – no wife, no kids, no girlfriends. He’d never been married, and the relationships