The Shadow hunter

I WON'T LET YOU PLAY WITH MY HEAD!

But he didn't send it. He stared at the crisp, explosive words, then deleted the text with a sweep of his mouse.

He couldn't assume Jack was lying. That was as foolish as blindly assuming he told the truth. He typed a new reply:

Are you friend or foe?

This was no good either. What was Jack supposed to say? What more could he say to establish his bona fides? He had already pointed Hickle to the drainage pipe and the agents in the cottage and the chauffeur who carried a gun.

He erased the second reply and stared at the screen.

What was going on exactly? Was it simply that he didn't want to believe in Abby's betrayal? Maybe so.

He had pursued Jill Dahlbeck, only to be rebuffed and humiliated and finally confronted by police officers warning him to back off. He had tried to reach Kris Barwood by every means available to him, but she would not meet with him or even acknowledge the reality of his feelings for her.

But with Abby, things had been different. She was not like Jill or Kris. She was kind to him. She treated him like a human being. She made him feel like a man.

But if it was all an act? If she was the enemy?

Pounding violence filled his skull. He wanted to scream and smash things. He lowered his head. Had to think. Jack could be telling the truth or lying. Abby could be what she was or a fraud. There was no way for him to gauge Jack's honesty directly. As for Abby… He knew her. She lived right next door. She was not merely a made-up name on a computer screen, a collection of pixels that mocked him. She was real and close, and he could learn the truth about her.

He typed a third reply.

I'll check out your story and see for myself.

This was the right thing to say. He clicked Send.

He had no plan, but he would come up with one. He was smart. He would work something out. And if she had indeed deceived him… He'd kill her. Yes.

First her, then Kris.

If she had deceived him. If.

Hickle clung to that word as he deleted Jack's email message and signed off.

If.

Such a little word, but Abby's life hung on it. ** Abby climbed onto the fire escape and stepped across the narrow landing to Hickle's bedroom window.

The lights in his apartment were on, but because the blinds were drawn she couldn't see in. A glance at his empty parking space reassured her that he had not returned.

Although his window was open, the screen was still in place. From outside, it proved difficult to remove.

She wished she had brought her locksmith kit, which contained a thin, flexible celluloid strip that could slip into the crack of a door and open a latch. It might have allowed her the leverage to work the screen loose.

She couldn't take the time to go back inside her apartment and get the kit. Rummaging in her purse, she found a Swiss army knife. Among its spring loaded tools was a pair of wire cutters. She snipped through part of the screen, inserted her fingers in the gap, and lifted the screen out of the window frame, then climbed into the apartment.

The code for the call return service was the star key followed by 6 and 9. Abby punched the three buttons and listened as a synthesized voice gave her the most recent caller's phone number. It was a local number with an unfamiliar exchange. She dictated it into her micro recorder Later she could look it up. She subscribed to an online reverse directory service that offered a comprehensive listing of residential and commercial phone numbers.

There was one more item of business in Hickle's apartment. She'd brought an infinity transmitter from her tool kit; it broadcast on the same frequency as the two microphones she had already installed.

Quickly she wired the transmitter into the base of the telephone.

Hickle could see it if he took the trouble to look, but this was a chance she'd decided to take. If the mystery caller phoned again, she wanted his voice on tape. A voiceprint could then be made for purposes of identification.

Done with the phone, she wiped off her prints. Mission accomplished.

Time to blow this joint.

She returned to Hickle's bedroom, intending to make her escape through the window, then paused, noticing his laundry basket on the floor. It was still full to the brim. He had never put away his clothes.

Odd. He'd had plenty of time.

She knelt and rummaged through the clothes, not sure what she was looking for. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except that a few items seemed curiously damp, though the rest were dry.

Almost as if a wet article of clothing had been stuffed into the basket… She touched the carpet and felt a wet spot, then another and another. The trail of drops led to the bathroom.

In Hickle's shower, hanging from the showerhead, dripping dry, was a pair of white high-cut Maidenform briefs.

Hers, of course.

When she'd sensed a presence in the laundry room, she had not been imagining things. Hickle had been watching her. He must have taken cover in the stairwell, and when she'd explored the boiler room, he had risked slipping past her and stealing this particular item right out of the washing machine.

His prize. His little piece of her, to touch and smell and kiss…

Abby shivered. She had a sudden urge to grab the poor, wrinkled, soggy thing that hung on the showerhead and abscond with it, but she couldn't.

If it was missing, Hickle would know she had been in here.

She would have to leave it. And she would try not to think about what he would use it for.

She left the bathroom and braced herself against the bedroom window, preparing to climb through, and then she looked past the railing, down at the parking lot.

Hickle's car was there.

It was parked under the carport, headlights off.

Hickle himself was nowhere in sight. He must already be inside the building, maybe riding the elevator to the fourth floor.

Get out, a voice in Abby's mind yelled.

Hickle would be enraged to find her here. And he was armed; he'd taken the duffel bag. Her Smith amp; Wesson was a poor match for a shotgun.

Unless she killed him instantly, he would have time to pump out a couple of shells, and at close range even a single shotgun blast would literally tear her apart.

"Oh, that's good, Abby," she hissed, scrambling through the window.

"Keep thinking those happy thoughts."

She was on the fire escape. Her instinct was to scurry to the safety of her bedroom, but she couldn't leave until the window screen had been replaced.

Installing the screen from outside was harder than she'd expected. She got hold of it through the gap she'd cut in the mesh, then jammed the top of the screen into the frame, but the bottom stubbornly refused to snap into position. The panel was large and awkward, difficult to maneuver, especially with the Venetian blind in the way, jangling and clattering.

She heard a squeal of hinges. Hickle's door, opening in the other room.

He was home.

With a last effort she wedged the screen in place.

Footsteps inside the apartment. He was coming into the bedroom, probably to put away the duffel bag.

She ducked low. No time to crawl away. She hugged the wall.

The blind swung and rattled in the bedroom window.

Hickle would surely notice. He did. She heard the complaint of the floorboards as he approached to investigate. She unclasped her purse and curled her finger over the Smith's trigger.

The blind opened, brightening the fire escape. She pressed close to the brick wall under the windowsill.

Across the iron railing loomed Hickle's shadow, large and misshapen.

His head tilted at a funny angle. He was peering out, surveying the night.

If he glanced down, he would see her. She waited, not breathing. She thought again of what a shotgun shell would do to her at this distance.

Like a grenade going off in her chest.

He might have spotted her already. Even now he might be removing the shotgun from his duffel, preparing to fire, while she huddled like a child playing hide-'n'-seek. It took all her willpower to remain motionless.

His shadow shifted. She saw a movement of his arm as if lifting the shotgun-Then there was a metallic clatter and a fall of darkness, and she realized he had merely reached up to pull the cord that closed the blind.

The tramp of his footsteps retreated. He had not seen her. He must have concluded that a gust of wind had set the blind swaying.

Close one, Abby thought. Kind of thing that really gets the blood circulating.

She slipped inside her apartment, then spent the next few minutes reacquainting herself with the experience of being alive and intact and ambulatory. Her throat was dry, and the back of her neck was stiff with tension.

When she checked the current programming on the closed-circuit TV monitor, she saw Hickle pacing his living room. He was agitated. He was angry.

She dialed up the volume, trying to catch the words he muttered under his breath.

"Can't trust anybody," he was saying.

"Can't trust him… or her. Can't trust either one."

Abby didn't like the sound of that.

Travis stepped out of the shower, throwing on his -L robe, and heard the chime of his doorbell.

Seven-thirty in the morning seemed early for visitors.

He rarely had company anyway. He lived on a twisting dead-end street in the Hollywood Hills, in a ranch-style house cantilevered over a canyon-a good house for entertaining, but he preferred to pass his time alone.

He wedged moccasins onto his feet and padded down the hall, pausing in an alcove before a video monitor that displayed a view of the front steps. Abby stood there in a rumpled blouse and jeans. His first thought was that she looked different. There was something about her expression, something hard to define. Then he realized it was the first time he had ever seen her looking scared.

He shut off his alarm system and opened the door.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey" She entered without another word. She hardly seemed to see him at all.

"Everything okay?" Travis asked, knowing it wasn't.

"Not exactly." Abby sidestepped into the living room and tossed her purse on the sofa but didn't sit.

"Hickle may have an accomplice."

"Accomplice?"

"Or an informant. I don't know for sure. Actually I don't know anything for sure." She paced, her Nikes squeaking on the hardwood floor. Sunbeams slanting through the deck's glass doors lit her trim, nervous figure. She had been to the house many times over the years, though rarely without calling first. Travis was always struck by how well she fit in here. His decor was sleek and functional in a starkly modernistic style, and Abby suited it-Abby with her slender legs and narrow waist and supple, elongated neck.

"I think you should sit down," Travis said quietly.

"You seem a little stressed."

She ignored him.

"I should be stressed. I was up half the night. Couldn't go to sleep until Hickle did. I watched him on the monitor till finally he nodded off after three a.m.-"

"Okay, slow down and take it from the beginning."

She let out a rush of breath and made an effort to speak calmly.

"Hickle got a phone call last night around eight-thirty. He left his apartment, taking his shotgun, and drove off. I lost him. I don't know where he went or who he might have made contact with. When he returned, he was obviously upset. The surveillance nukes picked up a lot of murmuring about not being able to trust anyone. It's possible somebody tipped him off."

"About you?"

"Yeah."

"You think he knows you're a plant?"

"He may" Travis approached her slowly.

"If he knows about you…"

"It could send him over the edge. I'm aware of that.

See why I didn't sleep until he did? Even then I maxed out the volume on my audio gear so if he got up in the night, I'd hear him. I was afraid he'd do something extreme."

She took a breath.

"There's something else."

"Yes?"

"The night before last, I used the hot tub at the apartment complex.

Somebody snuck up on me and pushed me under."

"Tried to drown you?"

She nodded.

"I scared him off with a broken beer bottle. Never saw him. Don't think it was Hickle-he seemed otherwise occupied, from what I could tell.

But maybe it was his accomplice. If there is an accomplice.

I just don't know…"

"Why didn't you tell me about your near-death experience when we spoke yesterday afternoon?"

"I wasn't sure it meant anything."

"Somebody tries to kill you, and you think it might not mean anything?

Come on, Abby, you can do better than that."

"All right, the truth is, I didn't want you pulling me off the case."

"I see."

She stared at him.

"You're not going to do that, right, Paul? Right?"

He didn't answer.

"Did you see Hickle this morning?"

"Yes, on the video monitor."

"How was he? Still agitated?"

"I think so. Can't be sure. He didn't hang around long.

Left for work at five-thirty. I drove past the donut shop on my way over here and saw his car in the parking lot."

"If he hasn't varied his usual routine, maybe he's not as worked up as you think."

"Or maybe he's maintaining his routine to give himself time to think."

"Biding his time? Getting ready to strike?"

"Yes."

"Against Kris-or you?"

"Maybe both of us."

"All right. So tell me. If there is an informant, who could it be?"

Abby shrugged.

"Someone with inside knowledge and a motive."

"Then we're looking for somebody who knows you're on this case.

Somebody who can get in touch with Hickle. Somebody who would want to sell you out. And somebody who wants Kris dead."

"Right." She hugged herself.

"I've gotta tell you, I hate this a lot. You know me, the original control freak.

Now suddenly everything feels like it's out of control.

I should be the one with all the secrets, but now Hickle has a secret I can't guess. It-it's got me kind of unnerved."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Couple hours. Not good sleep. I kept having this dream… Forget about that. It's not important."

"A psychologist who says dreams aren't important?"

"I'm not a psychologist."

"Neither am I. Tell me anyway. It's not good to hold these things inside you."

"Well… I dreamed I was in the hot tub again, being held down, only this time I didn't find a way to fight back. I just struggled until my air ran out, and then…"

Travis put his arms around her.

"It's okay," he whispered as he rocked her gently.

"No, it isn't. I don't like falling apart like this."

"You aren't falling apart."

"Well, wimping out, then."

"You're not doing that, either. But under the circumstances it might be best if we… altered our strategy."

"Took me off the job? Is that what you're saying?"

"It may be the only prudent solution-" She pulled free.

"No chance. I'm not running away. I signed up for the duration."

"If Hickle has been tipped off, you can't achieve anything useful anyway."

"Wrong. I can watch him the way I did last night.

Besides, he may not even know about me. He may not know anything. And I'm not a quitter, Paul."

"We're talking about your life…"

"Right. My life. Therefore, my decision."

He studied her.

"This isn't about Devin Corbal, is it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean trying to prove yourself to me. Or redeem yourself. Something like that."

"Don't get inside my head, please."

"I just want to know why you're so insistent on taking this kind of risk."

"Maybe I just like to live on the edge. Or maybe you're right about Corbal. What difference does it make? It's my job, and I'm doing it, and that's that."

She glared at him, defying him to disagree.

Travis relented.

"Okay." He teased a strand of hair off her forehead.

"You're stubborn, you know."

"It's a quality I pride myself on. Now, have you ever heard of a company called Western Regional Resources?"

"Should I have?"

"Probably not. They don't seem to do a lot of advertising.

I traced the phone call Hickle received, then tracked down the number with a reverse directory.

The call was made from a cell phone registered to Western Regional Resources. I couldn't find it on the Internet or in Lexis-Nexis.

Needless to say, they aren't in the Yellow Pages either."

Travis looked away toward the view of the canyon framed in the deck's glass doors.

"We can find them."

"Could be tough. My guess is, it's a dummy corporation." "That's my guess too," Travis said softly, still staring into the distance, and then he felt Abby's gaze on him.

"You know something," she whispered.

"I might. Follow me."

He led her to the rear of the house, detouring to pick up his notebook computer from the study. When he ushered her into the master bedroom, Abby shook her head in mock dismay.

"You've got a one-track mind."

"Not today. This is all business." Travis opened the hinged double doors of a walnut entertainment center, revealing a TV set with a thirty-inch screen.

"There's nothing good on at this hour," Abby said.

"Watch and learn." He picked up the remote control and pressed the channel buttons in a seven-digit sequence.

With a metallic snick, the front of the TV swung a few inches ajar on hidden hinges.

"A safe," he explained unnecessarily.

"State of the art."

"Very clever, but what if you want to watch Letterman?"

"The TV is fully functional. It's a flat-panel screen, four inches thick, with the circuitry imbedded in the frame. The rest of the unit is hollow."

"So what've you got in there? The family jewels?"

"I believe you know where I keep those." Travis opened the safe door fully, revealing racks of CDS in plastic sleeves.

"What I store here are files. Highly confidential files." "Background checks," Abby said quietly.

"How'd you guess?"

"I wondered about it sometimes. It seemed like a reasonable precaution.

TPS is hired to protect people from a variety of threats.

Not all stalkers are strangers.

Routine background checks might come in handy in some cases. Anyway, it seemed plausible to me that you would cover that angle. Why not?

You cover everything else." She smiled slyly.

"You're basically an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive perfectionist."

"Flattery is cheap."

"So TPS digs up dirt on its own clients and the people in their lives."

"We prefer to think of it as gathering intelligence."

"Whatever. You investigate a client's spouse, business partners, personal trainer-anybody in a position to deliver harm. But you never tell them, because they wouldn't appreciate having their pals and loved ones put under a microscope."

"That's why these files are confidential and why they're kept in my home."

Abby approached the safe and peered inside.

"CDS," she said.

"Four dozen or so. That's, what, thirty gigs of data?"

"Not all the disks are filled to capacity."

"Even so, it's a lot of info."

"As you said, I'm thorough." "Actually, what I said was that you're an obsessive compulsive anal-retentive-"

"I think thorough captures it adequately." He thumbed through the disks until he found one labeled BAR WOOD which he lifted from its sleeve.

"You're right, though. You can store a lot of information on a CD.

All seventy-five thousand articles in the Encyclope for instance."

Abby nodded.

"Or every detail of Kris Barwood's life and the lives of her friends, her relatives… her husband."

"Yes."

"Good old Howard." Her voice was low and thoughtful.

Travis frowned.

"Once again you don't sound surprised."

"I was up most of the night reviewing the possibilities.

And the husband is always a possibility. Please tell me that Howard Barwood set up a company called Western Regional Resources."

"I wish I could. That would make everything easy."

"And things are never easy. It would take all the challenge out of life. If he doesn't own that company, what made you think of him?"

"Let me show you." Travis placed his notebook computer on the bed and inserted the CD, bringing up its contents on the screen. A series of folder icons appeared.

The first was labeled BAR WOOD HOWARD." Others bore the names of various people connected to Kris-friends, coworkers, attorneys and managers, even her housekeeper.

He accessed Howard Barwood's folder. Inside were more folders, arranged alphabetically: BANK ACCOUNTS, CLIENT LIST, CREDIT HISTORY, FINANCES,