‘OK, I’m not waiting until we get home so we can talk about this, Carlos. What the hell is going on?’ Anna still sounded rattled. ‘I could see there was nothing happening in Tujunga Village – no squad cars, no one being arrested, no emergency, nothing out of the ordinary to speak of.’
Garcia shifted a gear and joined North Mednick Avenue, going south.
‘This has got something to do with whatever you’re investigating at the moment, hasn’t it?’ Anna asked rhetorically. ‘I know because Robert was surveying the street like a man on a mission. Who are you guys looking for? How did you know that I was out shopping with a friend? Why are you scaring me like this?’ Tears welled up in her eyes.
Garcia took a deep breath.
‘Talk to me, Carlos, please.’
‘I have to ask you for something,’ Garcia finally said, his voice steady.
Anna leaned back against the passenger’s door, wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at her husband.
‘I need you to stay at your parents’ for a few hours. I’ll come and pick you up later.’
Anna took two whole seconds to digest the request before her nerves took over again. ‘What? You said that nothing had happened to my parents. Are they OK?’
‘Yes, yes, they’re fine, baby. Nothing happened to them. I just need you to stay there for a few hours. I need to go back to the PAB and sort a few things out. I’ll come and get you in a short while.’
Anna waited.
Garcia said nothing else.
‘And that’s all you’re going to say?’ she challenged.
One of the reasons why Garcia and Anna’s relationship worked so well was because they both knew they could always talk to each other, no matter what. And they always did. There was never any recrimination, jealousy or judgment. They were both great listeners, and they supported and understood each other better than they understood themselves.
Anna could see Garcia was struggling with it.
‘Carlos,’ she said, placing a hand on his knee. ‘You know I trust you. I always have, and I always will. If you want me to go stay with my parents for a few hours, I can do that, it’s not a problem, but I have the right to know the reason why. Why don’t you want me to go home? What is going on?’
Garcia knew Anna was right. He also knew that there was no way he could give her the real reason without frightening her, but he had no other alternative. If he lied, she would see right through him. She always did.
He took another deep breath and told her what had happened earlier in the day.
Anna listened without interrupting. When he was done, tears had returned to her eyes, and Garcia felt his heart tighten inside his chest.
‘He was right behind us?’ Anna asked. ‘Filming us?’
Garcia nodded.
‘And he was broadcasting it live over the Internet?’
‘Over the Internet, yes,’ Garcia said. ‘But not open to everyone, just to Robert and me. No one else could see it.’
Anna didn’t want or need to know the technical details.
‘Please, Anna, just stay with your parents for a few hours. I need to get a few things in motion, and I want to check our apartment.’
Anna coughed. ‘You think he’s been in our
At that moment Anna couldn’t be sure if the emotion in Garcia’s voice was anger or fear.
‘So this is the same person who abducted and killed that
Garcia didn’t need to reply. Anna knew she was right.
He kept his eyes on the road and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, bottling all he could inside. What he really wanted to ask Anna was for her to leave Los Angeles until they had this psycho behind bars. But she would never agree to it, even if her life
Garcia had agreed with Hunter that
Usually he would’ve taken his time conquering the eight flights of stairs that led up to his flat, cursing as he reached the top of each one, but tonight he was already ten minutes late for his half-hour, face-to-face call with his four-year-old daughter, Alicia.
When Alicia was born, Ethan’s life seemed to be on a plain-sailing course to success. Ethan was an independent videogames programmer, and a very good one at that. He had developed several online games by himself, and for three consecutive years he’d won the prestigious Mochis Flash Games Award for Best Strategy and Puzzle Game of the Year. But with the advent of direct online stores for major platforms like Microsoft’s X-Box 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, a whole new world had been presented to independent videogames developers. And there was a hell of a lot of money to be made.
Ethan had discussed the idea of creating a game for the X-Box 360 with Brad Nelson, a brilliant Canadian games programmer he had met several years back. Brad said that he had also been playing around with the same idea, but doing it alone was a mountainous task. After a few more talks, they decided to do it together, and that was how Ethan and Brad created AssKicker Games just six months before Ethan’s baby girl was born.
Brad was very well connected, and on the strength of Ethan’s games awards he managed to secure a couple of very healthy investments, which enabled both of them to quit their day jobs and concentrate solely on developing their first major console game.
Within seven months they had a short playable demo that went viral on the X-Box 360 store. An incredible buzz started about the game and their company, but Ethan was a perfectionist, and he kept on stripping and redoing enormous chunks of the game, which severely hindered its progress. Arguments started breaking out between Ethan and Brad on a daily basis. The completion date for the game just kept on being put back further and further, and two years later it was still under development. No one knew for sure when it would be finished. The buzz about the game and their company had died down. The investments dried up. Ethan ended up remortgaging his house and putting everything he had into the company.