Gallery of the Dead

Eighty-Seven

It was the last of Hunter and Garcia’s two days off and for the first time in years, Hunter did stay away from his desk, spending most of his time in Tracy’s company. He had spent last night at her apartment and though she had asked him if he wanted to stay the night again, Hunter had politely declined, saying that he wanted to run a few searches against a couple of FBI databases.

He had lied, which Hunter hated doing, but he wanted to take it slow with Tracy. He liked her... a lot, actually, but he had way too many demons running around inside his head to be able to simply step into a relationship in the same way a regular person would. Back in his apartment, Hunter read for a few hours before finally going to bed.

To put it in simple terms, there are essentially two types of insomnia. The first and most common one of the two keeps the subject from falling asleep. Regardless of how tired they might feel, or how dark and silent they might be able to make their surroundings, as soon as they finally lie down and close their eyes, their brains will shift into a new gear they didn’t even know existed. The body will feel exhausted, but the brain will be wide awake. No position will ever be comfortable enough and sleep eventually becomes as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The second type is even more debilitating because it will allow the subject to fall asleep easily at first. It will permit them to go into a deep sleep, which we all experience during the first third of our sleeping time, before torturously waking them up as if an angry fire alarm had gone off inside their heads. Once they are awake, most people who suffer from this type of insomnia will not be able to fall asleep again for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately for Hunter, he suffered from both types.

He’d been asleep for just under two hours when his brain decided to hit the fire-alarm switch.

‘Oh, give me a goddamn break,’ he mumbled as he opened his eyes and woozily stared at the ceiling. He could picture his brain laughing at him.

So you thought you would get some real sleep this time, did you? Oh, Robert, you are so easy to fool.

Hunter turned to one side and closed his eyes again, willing sleep to come back, but that just caused his brain to laugh harder.

What are you doing? Are you challenging me? We both know who’ll win this battle, don’t we? Sleep time is over for you, my dear friend.

Defeated, Hunter sat at the edge of his bed and switched on the bedside lamp.

Cursing his brain, Hunter staggered into the bathroom and washed his face. As he reached for the bathrobe hanging from the hook by the shower enclosure, he heard his cellphone ring on his bedside table. He rushed to it.

‘Detective Hunter,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘UVC Unit.’

‘Robert, it’s Erica. We’ve got a lead.’ There was an excited quiver to Agent Fisher’s voice.

‘What?’

‘Cyber Crime has managed to track the external connections that were made into the Optum platform.’

‘All of them?’

‘That’s right. It took them almost three days to track the entire path because the connection was bounced through five different locations. A pretty clever move, according to Cyber Crime, but not clever enough. The connections all originated from the exact same location, and guess what? The location is in California. Less than a hundred miles outside Los Angeles.’

‘What? Where?’

‘Riverside County,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘The property is an old horse ranch just south of Skull Canyon, about an hour’s drive away.’

‘Who’s the owner?’

‘The ranch used to belong to a Mr. Thomas Brewer, who died nine years ago. His wife had passed away five years before him and their only son was killed in action in Iraq in 2005. There’s no record of a new owner. It seems like the place has been abandoned since Mr. Brewer’s death. We’re on our way there right now. You coming?’

Hunter felt a whoosh of warmth start at his temples and slowly spread through his whole body.

‘What’s the address?’

‘I’m sending a map with all the coordinates to your phone right now.’