The Executioner

Forty-Five

Hunter closed the door to his apartment behind him, leaned back and shut his eyes. The headache that had started at the house in Malibu had intensified on the way home. It now felt as if a rat had woken up inside his skull, panicked and tried to scratch its way out through his eyes.

The obnoxious smell of burned flesh had managed to bypass his coverall and it’d impregnated his clothes. A bitter tang so strong that it unsettled his stomach, stung at his eyes and constantly made him gag. He needed a shower – urgently.

Hunter undressed quickly. He grabbed a black trash can liner from the kitchen and dumped his clothes into it, knowing that washing them, no matter how much detergent he used, would never fully get rid of the smell.

In the bathroom, he ran the shower as hot as he could tolerate and leaned against the white tiles, letting the water sluice over his head, shoulders and back. Now, away from everyone’s eyes, his chest heaved and he finally threw up. By the time he turned off the water, his skin had gone a dark shade of pink and his fingertips were soft and wrinkled. He’d been through almost an entire bar of soap, but still the smell lingered. It wasn’t on his skin, he knew that. The unsettling odor had clung to the hairs inside his nose and no amount of blowing was getting rid of it. For the time being, the only solution he could come up with was to numb his brain.

The first two shots went down neat and in one single gulp. The third, a double, was poured over a single cube of ice and sipped slowly.

It was late, but Hunter knew sleep would be bordering on impossible. It was already hard enough on a regular, non-eventful day.

He paced the room for a while before stopping by his living room window. He stood there for a moment, staring at the empty street. His mind full of thoughts. Nothing made sense.

The single malt seemed to be doing the trick where the smell of burned flesh was concerned, but his head still felt like a ticking bomb. Headache tablets had never really worked for him, so he discarded the thought as it entered his mind. But pills reminded him of something else, and it made his pulse race – Monica, the girl who’d dropped by the station earlier.

Over the years, he’d seen his fair share of crazy people and charlatans, all of them positive they could lead the police to an unfound body or to an elusive killer, but something told Hunter that wasn’t the case this time.

There was something different about Monica. Hunter saw a conviction in her eyes he’d never seen before in any of the so-called psychics. She wasn’t after a free publicity ride or attention. In fact, she looked scared, as if talking to the police would expose her to something or someone she’d been running away from.

Hunter took a deep breath and ran his hand through his wet hair. Her words still echoed in his ears. Helen… it wasn’t your fault. ‘How could she know?’ he said out loud. ‘No one does.’

He felt the same old destructive guilt creep up on him, and he finished the rest of his Scotch in one large swig. It burned the back of his throat, and that’s when he remembered the last thing she’d said to him.

‘He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.’