An Evil Mind (46 page)
‘They’ve always made the best victims.’ Lucien still sounded unconcerned.
‘Because of their natural physical resemblance to you, taking their place was never a hard thing to do – a little makeup, some hair dye, maybe some contact lenses, a new accent, and, “Goodbye Lucien Folter, hello new identity.” In this case, Anthony Tailor-Cotton, from Halifax in Canada.’
Lucien finally caught up with Hunter. ‘So you and the FBI spent the night flying through those books, looking for every male victim’s name you could find.’
Hunter nodded. ‘A nationwide APB was put out for every name in the list we came up with. But I’ll admit that our hopes were very, very low. The best we were hoping for was that maybe, if we were very lucky, a few years from now one of those names would show up in a credit card transaction somewhere. Just a sniff of a clue to where you could be. Now, you can imagine our surprise when within a couple of hours we got word that Anthony Tailor-Cotton, holder of a Canadian passport, just like one of the victims described in one of your notebooks, had purchased a ticket for a flight to Brazil tonight.’
‘I guess I should’ve taken an earlier flight,’ Lucien commented.
Hunter could easily see Lucien’s logic. Initially he had two options. One was to stay in the USA and lay low for a while . . . a long while, and while doing so, he would probably have to live under the shroud of a disguise. His name would’ve made the list of the top ten most wanted by the FBI, and his picture would’ve been circulated to every police department and sheriff’s office in the country. Lucien Folter wasn’t the unknown ghost of a killer he used to be anymore.
Option number two was to disappear quickly, preferably somewhere outside the USA. Hunter knew that Lucien didn’t underestimate the FBI. He knew that his encyclopedia would be scrutinized to the tiniest detail, because that was exactly what he wanted. He was counting on the Bureau linking the name of one of his victims to the same name he was using when he was arrested, and then making the physical connection between all of his male victims and himself. So, if Lucien disappeared quickly and to somewhere outside the USA, then when all those connections were made it wouldn’t matter, because the FBI wouldn’t be able to get their hands on him anyway. He just never imagined that the Bureau would’ve managed to connect everything in a matter of hours.
‘Maybe you should’ve,’ Hunter said. ‘Like I said, this time I got lucky and you didn’t, because the name “Liam Shaw” so happened to be in one of the eight books I had with me. If I hadn’t come across that name, it would’ve probably taken the FBI a few months to connect the dots, by which time you would’ve been long gone.’
Hunter’s eyes finally left Lucien’s face and moved down the aisle toward the dividing curtain at the front. All of a sudden the curtain was pulled aside and Director Adrian Kennedy, together with four FBI agents, began making their way toward Hunter. At the opposite end of the aisle, four armed NYPD SWAT officers had appeared, and were also making their way toward them.
For the first time, Lucien showed real surprise.
‘You’re going to hand me over to the FBI?’
Hunter said nothing.
‘That’s very disappointing, Robert. I thought you were a man of your word. I thought that you had promised not only yourself, but also the memory of your
murdered
fiancée, that you’d find who’d so violently taken Jessica from your life, and kill him. That’s what you’ve been searching for for twenty years, isn’t it? To avenge Jessica’s death. Well, here I am, old friend. All you have to do is put a bullet through my head and your twenty-year-long search is over. You can be proud of yourself.’ Lucien quickly checked the aisles. ‘So c’mon, Robert. Here I am, a sitting duck. I promise you I won’t react. It’ll be an easy shot.’
Hunter shifted on his feet.
Kennedy and everyone else were getting closer.
‘I thought you’d said that more than anything else, Jessica deserved justice. Are you telling me that you’re going to betray that promise, Robert? You’re going to betray the memory of the only person you ever loved? The woman who you wanted for your wife? The woman who was carrying your baby?’
Hunter froze.
Lucien saw the hurt in his face. He pushed.
‘Yes, I knew she was pregnant. She told me when she begged me not to kill her, but I did it anyway. And did you know that yours was the last name that came out of her lips before I cut her throat open? Before I murdered her and your child?’
Hunter saw red as his blood began to boil. The thoughts inside his head made no sense anymore. His actions were no longer guided by sense and logic, but by pure rage. His hand was shaking with devastating anger when he reached for his gun holster.
Kennedy saw the look on Hunter’s eyes, but he was still several steps away from him.
‘ROBERT, DON’T DO IT!’ he shouted down the aisle.
Too late.
One Hundred and Twelve
Hunter had acted so fast that his hand had moved onto his gun holster and then back in Lucien’s direction in just a split second.
Lucien flinched and Hunter saw his body go rigid, but not from fear – from expectation – from satisfaction in his accomplishment. That satisfaction was short-lived.
Hunter dropped a pair of handcuffs on Lucien’s lap.
Lucien looked up at him, confused. Hunter was holding no gun.
‘You’re right,’ Hunter said. ‘Jessica deserves justice. Her parents deserve justice. My unborn child deserves justice. And I deserve justice for what you’ve done. Nothing would please me more than to put a bullet in your head right here, right now. But we’re not the only ones who deserve justice for what you’ve done, Lucien. The parents, the families, and the friends of every single victim you tortured and killed over so many years deserve justice too. They deserve to know what really happened to the people who most of them still believe and hope are just missing. They deserve to know where the remains of their loved ones are. They deserve to be able to give them a proper burial according to their beliefs. And most of all, they deserve to know that the monster who killed those loved ones will never kill again.’
Hunter looked at Kennedy, who was now just a couple of feet away, and then back at Lucien.
‘For that reason, yes, I’ll betray my promise to myself and to Jessica. And this time, there will be no more interviews, no more talks, Lucien. You have no more bargaining power, because we have your books, and everything we need to know is in those pages, including the location to the remains of every one of your victims. This really is where it ends for you.’
Hunter nodded at the SWAT agents to his left. ‘You can take him now.’
One Hundred and Thirteen
Despite his insomnia and the carnival of thoughts dancing around in his head, Hunter was so exhausted that he finally managed to sleep for a total of four hours.
After Lucien’s arrest, he had flown back to Quantico. As Kennedy had put it before, he was still officially ‘on loan’ to the FBI and, as such, he needed to fill in his last report. That was done late last night.
Hunter had woken up before dawn. Kennedy had arranged for an FBI jet to fly him back to Los Angeles early in the morning, and Hunter couldn’t wait to get out of that place. Everything still felt too surreal in his mind. Only a few days ago, he was supposed to be boarding a plane to Hawaii, his first vacation in so long, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had one. Instead, he was whisked away to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, and into something that could only be described as a hellish nightmare. So much was revealed in so little time, his head seemed like it would never stop spinning.
Hunter was all ready to go. His few belongings were already packed into his rucksack, and he had nothing else to do but wait for the driver to come pick him up. He walked over to the window on the east wall and placed his cup of coffee on the ledge. Outside, still under the cover of the night, several FBI recruits had already started their grueling exercise and running routines.
Hunter looked up at the star-filled sky as he reached for his wallet. From it he retrieved a twenty-year-old photograph. The colors had partially faded, but other than that, the picture was still in pretty good condition.
Hunter had taken that photo himself, a day after he and Jessica had got engaged. She was standing on Santa Monica pier, smiling at the camera, her eyes glistening with an overwhelming happiness. Staring at the photograph, Hunter’s heart was filled with a barrage of old and brand new emotions. He felt a knot coming to his throat, but then he remembered the words Director Kennedy had told him in the early hours of the morning.
‘Before you go, Robert, I want to make sure you understand something. I’m not going to pretend I know, because I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on inside your mind right now. But I can tell you this, no matter what; you
must
stand proud, because thanks to you, we estimate that we’ll be able to bring closure and final peace of mind to at least eighty families around the USA. Lucien’s twenty-five-year murderous spree is finally over. You ended it. Don’t ever forget that.’
Hunter knew he never would.
Acknowledgements
It’s a well-known fact that writing is regarded as a solitary occupation, but I have found out that though authored by a single individual, a novel is never the achievement of one alone.
My most sincere thanks go to all the incredible people at Simon & Schuster UK and to my editor, Jo Dickinson, whose great input and valuable suggestions made the story and the characters in this thriller come alive. Also, to my copy editor, Ian Allen, for his incredible work and attention to detail all throughout the manuscript.
Words can’t express how thankful I am to the most passionate and extraordinary agent any author could ever hope for – Darley Anderson.
To the fantastic team of extremely hard-working people at The Darley Anderson Literary Agency, I owe my eternal gratitude.
Thank you also to all the readers and everyone out there who has so fantastically supported me and my novels from the start. Without your support, I wouldn’t be writing.
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