by Chris Carter
‘Hi, Jen, are you OK? You look a bit tired,’ Pietro, the long-haired barman, asked as Jenny approached the bar. He still spoke with a slight Spanish accent.
‘I’m OK, hun, just too much partying I guess,’ she said unenthusiastically after catching a glimpse of herself in one of the bar mirrors. Her hypnotic blue eyes seemed to have lost some of their sparkle tonight.
‘No rest for the wicked, huh?’ Pietro’s comment came with a shy smile.
‘Not tonight,’ Jenny smiled back.
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, I’m OK. I’m still struggling with this one.’ She raised her champagne glass giving him a sexy wink. ‘I just needed to get away from the party for a little while.’
Pietro and Jenny had flirted a few times but he’d never made a move on her. He knew she belonged to D-King.
‘Well, if you need anything just give me a shout.’ Pietro went back to preparing cocktails and flipping bottles. A dark-haired woman who had been standing on the other side of the bar dying to get his attention gave Jenny an evil look that said ‘Back off, bitch, I saw him first.’
Jenny swept a hand through her long, wheat-blond hair, placed her champagne glass on the bar counter and turned around to face the dance floor. She enjoyed the club’s atmosphere. All those people having fun, dancing, drinking and finding love. OK, maybe not love, she thought, but at least they’d be having sex for pleasure, not money. She wanted to be just like them. This was definitely not the beautiful Hollywood life she’d dreamed of when she left Idaho six years ago.
Jenny Farnborough’s fascination with Hollywood started at the age of twelve. The movie theater became her shelter from the never-ending rows between her submissive mother and her overly aggressive stepfather. Films became her escape route, the vehicle that could take her places she’d never been before and she wanted to be a part of it.
Jenny knew that the Hollywood dream was nothing more than a fantasy. Something that existed only in clichéd romantic books and films, and she’d read and watched plenty of those. She had to admit she was a dreamer, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe she’d be the lucky one. She had nothing to lose.
At the age of fourteen she started her first job as a popcorn girl. Jenny saved every dime she earned and by her sixteenth birthday she had enough saved up to leave that godforsaken town behind. She swore she’d never go back to Idaho. Jenny never found out about her mother overdosing on sleeping pills only a week after she’d left.
Hollywood was everything she’d expected it to be. A magical place full of beautiful people, lights and fantasies, but the harsh reality of life in the City of Angels was a far cry from the illusion she’d created. Her savings didn’t last long and with no professional training the rejections started piling up like dirty laundry. Her beautiful dream slowly began to turn into a nightmare.
Jenny was introduced to D-King by Wendy Loutrop, another struggling wannabe actress. At first she’d rejected every proposition he’d made her. She’d heard all the stories about beautiful women coming to Hollywood dreaming of becoming a star only to end up working the streets or for the porn-movie industry. Jenny was determined not to give in. She didn’t want to become just another failure story, but her pride had to play second fiddle to her survival instinct, and after several months of phone calls and expensive gifts D-King had himself a new girl.
Jenny never noticed the hand pouring a colorless liquid into her champagne glass. Her eyes were still set on the dancing crowd.
‘Hi there, babe, can I buy you a drink?’ a tall, blond man standing to her right asked with a bright smile.
‘I already have a drink, but thank you for the offer anyway,’ she replied politely without locking eyes with the stranger.
‘Are you sure? I can order us a bottle of Cristal. What do you say, babe?’
Jenny turned and faced the tall blond man. He was smartly dressed wearing a dark-grey Versace suit, a crisp white shirt with a stiff collar and a blue silk tie. His green eyes were his most striking feature. Jenny had to admit he was an attractive man.
‘What’s your name?’ she said forcing a smile.
‘I’m Carl and it’s a pleasure to meet you,’ he said offering his hand.
Instead of shaking it Jenny had a sip of her champagne. ‘Look Carl, you’re quite a handsome guy, I’ll give you that’ – her voice now taking a very sweet tone – ‘but trying to pick up a girl by flashing your money around is not a great idea, especially in a place like this. It makes us feel cheap, unless you are looking for a bimbo – is that what you are looking for? A pro?’
‘Oh . . . No!’ Carl fumbled with his tie nervously. ‘Sorry, that’s not how I meant it, babe.’
‘So you ain’t looking for a party girl to show you a really good time?’ she asked having another sip of her champagne, her eyes now fixed on his.
‘No, of course not, hun. Just trying to have a friendly drink, and if there’s any chemistry between us . . .’ He left the sentence hanging in the air with a shrug of his shoulders.
Very gently, she ran her fingers down his tie before pulling him closer. ‘It’s a pity you’re not looking for a party girl,’ she whispered into his left ear.
Carl’s smile evaporated into a confused look.
‘I could’ve given you my pimp’s number, he’s right over there.’ She pointed to the VIP area with a sarcastic smile on her lips.
Carl half opened his mouth as if about to say something but no words came out.
Jenny drank the rest of her champagne and gave him a sexy wink before moving away from the bar and into the ladies’ room.
The eyes still followed her.
It won’t be long now. The drug will soon show its effect.
Jenny was re-applying her lipstick when she started to feel faint. She knew something was wrong. All of a sudden she felt hot and feverish. The walls seemed to be closing in on her. She found it hard to breathe and moved towards the door as quickly as she could. She needed to get out of there.
As she stumbled out of the ladies’ room the entire place spun around her. She wanted to go back to D-King’s table but her legs weren’t responding. Jenny was about to collapse on the floor when a pair of hands grabbed her.
‘Are you OK, babe? You don’t look so good.’
‘I don’t feel too well. I think I need . . .’
‘You need some air. It’s too stuffy in here. Come with me, I’ll help you. Let’s step outside for a while.’
‘But I . . .’ Jenny had started to slur her words. ‘I need to tell D . . . I have to go back to . . .’
‘Later, babe, now you just need to come with me.’
No one noticed Jenny and the stranger walking towards the club exit.
Coming soon from Simon & Schuster
Robert Hunter is about to face his grisliest case yet.
Available August 2013 in Hardback and Ebook
Hardback ISBN 978-0-85720-305-2
Ebook ISBN 978-0-85720-309-0
Turn the page for a sneak preview . . .
A single shot to the back of the head, execution style. Many people consider it a very violent way to die. But the truth is – it isn’t. At least not for the victim.
A 9mm bullet will enter the back of someone’s skull and exit at the other side in three ten-thousandths of a second. It will shatter the cranium and rupture through the subject’s brain matter so fast the nervous system has no time to register any pain. If the angle in which the bullet enters the victim’s head is correct, the bullet should splice the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, even the thalamus in such a way that the brain will cease functioning, resulting in instant death. If the angle of the shot is wrong, the victim might survive, but not without extensive brain damage. The entry wound should be no larger than a small grape, but the exit wound could be as large as a tennis ball, depending on the type of bullet used.
The male victim on the photograph Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division (RHD) w
as looking at had died instantly – no suffering. The bullet had traversed his entire skull, rupturing the cerebellum together with the temporal and the frontal lobes, causing fatal brain damage in three ten-thousandths of a second. A full second later he was dead on the ground.
The case wasn’t Hunter’s; it belonged to Detective Terry Radley in the main detectives’ floor, but the investigation photos had ended up on Hunter’s desk by mistake. As he returned the A4-sized photograph to the case file, the phone on his desk rang.
‘Detective Hunter, Homicide Special,’ he answered it, half expecting it to be Detective Radley after the photo file.
Silence.
‘Hello?’
‘Is this Detective Robert Hunter?’ The raspy voice on the other side was male. The tone was calm, not too low, not too high. The person spoke slowly.
‘Yes, this is Detective Robert Hunter. Can I help you?’
Hunter heard the caller breath out.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out, Detective.’
Hunter frowned.
‘I’m going to need your full attention for the next few minutes.’
Hunter cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your na . . .’
‘Shut the fuck up and listen, Detective,’ the caller interrupted him. His voice was still calm. ‘This is not a conversation.’
Hunter went silent. The LAPD received tens, sometimes hundreds of crazy calls a day – drunks, drug users on a high, abusive people, gang members trying to look ‘badass’, psychics, people wanting to report a government conspiracy or an alien invasion, even people who claimed to have seen Elvis down at the local café. But there was something in the caller’s tone of voice, something in the way he spoke that told Hunter that dismissing the call as a prank would be a mistake. He decided to play along for the time being.
Hunter’s partner, Detective Carlos Garcia, was sitting at his desk, which faced Hunter’s, inside their small office on the fifth floor of the Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles. His longish dark-brown hair was tied back in a slick ponytail. Garcia was reading something on his computer screen, unaware of his partner’s telephone conversation. He pushed himself away from his desk and leisurely interlaced his fingers behind his head.
Hunter snapped his fingers once to catch Garcia’s attention, pointed to the receiver at his ear and made a circular motion with his index finger, indicating that he needed the call recorded and traced.
Garcia instantly reached for the phone on his desk, punched the internal code that connected him to Operations, and got everything rolling in less than five seconds. He signalled to Hunter, who signalled back telling him to listen in. Garcia tapped into the line.
‘I’m assuming you do have a computer on your desk, Detective,’ the caller said. ‘And that computer is connected to the internet?’
‘That’s correct.’
A very uneasy pause.
‘OK. I want you to type the address I’m about to give you into your address bar . . . are you ready?’
Hunter hesitated.
‘Trust me, Detective, you will want to see this.’
Hunter leaned forward over his keyboard and brought up his internet browser. Garcia did the same.
‘OK, I’m ready,’ Hunter said in a calm tone.
The caller gave Hunter an internet address made only of numbers and dots, no letters.
Hunter and Garcia typed the sequence into their address bars and pressed the ‘enter’ key. Their computer screens flicked a couple of times before the web page loaded.
Both detectives went still, as a morbid silence took hold of the room.
The caller chuckled. ‘I guess I have your full attention now.’
Chris Carter
The Executioner
Robert Hunter Book 2
Inside a Los Angeles church, on the altar steps, lies the blood-soaked, decapitated body of a priest. Carefully positioned, legs stretched out, arms crossed over the chest, the most horrifying thing of all is that the priest’s head has been replaced by that of a dog. Later, the forensic team discover that, on the victim’s chest, the figure 3 has been scrawled in blood.
At first, Detective Robert Hunter believes that this is a ritualistic killing. But as more bodies surface, he is forced to reassess. All the victims died in the way they feared the most. Their worst nightmares have literally come true. But how could the killer have known? And what links these apparently random victims?
Hunter finds himself on the trail of an elusive and sadistic killer, someone who apparently has the power to read his victims’ minds. Someone who can sense what scares his victims the most. Someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his twisted aim.
Ebook ISBN 978-0-85720-013-6
Chris Carter
The Night Stalker
Robert Hunter Thriller 3
If you think you’re safe . . . think again
When an unidentified female body is discovered laid out on a slab in an abandoned butcher’s shop, the cause of death is unclear. Her body bares no marks; except for the fact that her lips have been carefully stitched shut.
It is only when the full autopsy gets underway at the Los Angeles County morgue that the pathologist reveals the true horror of the situation – a discovery so devastating that Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Homicide Special Section has to be pulled off a different case to take over the investigation.
But when his inquiry collides with a missing persons’ case being investigated by the razor-sharp Whitney Meyers, Hunter suspects the killer might be keeping several women hostage. Soon Robert finds himself on the hunt for a murderer with a warped obsession, a stalker for whom love has become hate.
Ebook ISBN 978-0-85720-299-4
Chris Carter
The Death Sculptor
Robert Hunter Thriller 4
‘Good job you didn’t turn on the lights . . .’
A student nurse has the shock of her life when she discovers her patient, prosecutor Derek Nicholson, brutally murdered in his bed. The act seems senseless – Nicholson was terminally ill with only weeks to live. But what most shocks Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division is the calling card the killer left behind.
For Hunter and his partner Garcia, there is no doubt that the killer is trying to communicate with the police. But what could the hidden message be? Then the killer strikes again.
Forced into an uncomfortable alliance with headstrong investigator Alice Beaumont, Hunter must race to put together the pieces of the puzzle . . . before the Death Sculptor puts the final touches to his masterpiece.
Ebook ISBN 978-0-85720-304-5
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright page
Half-title page
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright page
Half-title page
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
