I Am Death

Eighty

Hunter spent the next twenty-two minutes rereading everything he had found, and for him it only served to underline something he already knew — that reality was much, much more perverted than fiction. The problem was, if he were right in his hunch, reality was just about to get a lot more twisted.

He recalled all the photographs he had found with his initial search less than an hour ago and studied them again, this time a lot more carefully. The last photograph was the one that had triggered an avalanche of thoughts inside Hunter’s head. The one that had made him call Adrian Kennedy.

Despite his best efforts, that was the only photograph of that subject he could find. It had been taken years ago and from a considerable distance. The angle also didn’t help, making the subject blurry and unclear.

Hunter tried using a photo-enhancing application to enlarge it on his screen, but the bigger he made it, the more pixelated it got and the blurrier it became. Still, something about its subject made him very uneasy.

Hunter had become so absorbed by the image that he almost didn’t notice his cellphone rattling against his desktop.

The screen display told him that the caller was unknown.

Had Mat Hade been arrested?

‘Detective Robert Hunter, Robbery Homicide Division,’ he said as he brought the phone to his ear.

‘Robert, it’s Adrian.’

Hunter breathed out. ‘Did you have any luck?’

There was a heavy pause.

‘Adrian?’

‘Yes. I got the files you’re after. I’m emailing them to you right now.’

‘Thanks, Adrian. I’ll owe you for this.’

‘Yes, you will. Robert?’ Adrian called before Hunter could put the phone down.

‘Yes.’

‘Be careful, old friend.’

Hunter disconnected and opened his email application. Seconds later, Kennedy’s email arrived. The subject field was left blank. The body of the email showed only two words — Good luck — but the message came with three separate attachments. Hunter opened the first one and began reading through it. The information it contained was very similar to what he had already found out, only much more detailed.

The second attachment consisted of a single black and white photograph. A photograph of the same subject Hunter had been studying before he’d received Kennedy’s telephone call. As the picture filled Hunter’s screen, he stopped breathing for a moment. It was an old photograph, but not as old as the one Hunter had found. It had been taken inside a controlled environment, not from a considerable distance, and the subject was staring straight at the camera.

Hunter could barely believe his own eyes.

It took him more than a minute to get over the shock of what he was looking at. Once he had, he finally opened the last attachment. The most secretive of all the documents Adrian Kennedy had sent him.

And the most devastating.

As Hunter read through it, he felt as if life had lost its logic.

He got up and began pacing the room, trying to put his thoughts in order. What to do next?

The clock on the wall showed 12:59 a.m.

There was no way he could wait until the morning.

Reaching for his cellphone, Hunter placed two calls. The second one was to his partner.