The Shadow Hunter

by Michael Prescott

  “You shouldn’t trust your life to him, Kris,” Hickle whispered. “You’re not nearly as safe as you think.”

  There was sun and sea spray and blue sky. There was the momentum of her body, the rhythm of her feet on the sand. There was her breathing, her heart rate.

  This was all. Nothing more. Only the moment. One moment detached from the rest of her life, one moment when she did not have to think about threats and security measures, the bodyguard jogging a few paces behind her, the command post in the guest cottage at her house…

  Damn.

  Kris Barwood slowed her pace. The thoughts were back. The mood was broken.

  Her daily exercise routine, a four-mile run along the strip of semiprivate beach that bordered Malibu Reserve, had been her one respite from the constant stress of vigilance and fear. The beach had always felt safe to her. It was a special place. People played here with their dogs and flew kites in the salty wind. On one side was the Pacific, studded with wave-battered rocks, and on the other side stood rows of immaculate homes, some boasting the extravagance of swimming pools only steps from the high tide mark. The houses were narrow but deep, extending well back from the strand. Though ridiculously close together, they afforded a curious sense of privacy, and loud parties were rare. Most of the owners worked long hours in intensely competitive fields. They came home to relax, as she used to do—but now there was no relaxation for her anywhere.

  “Kris? You okay?” That was Steve Drury, her bodyguard, a pleasant young man with a swimmer’s build and a sun-streaked crew cut. When they jogged together, he wore shorts, a T-shirt, and a zippered belly-pouch that contained a 9mm Beretta.

  She realized she had stopped running entirely. “Fine,” she said. “Don’t have my usual energy.”

  “You’ll make up for it tomorrow. We’ll do two extra miles. Deal?”

  She found a smile. “Deal.”

  They crossed the sand to her house, a three-story modernistic box with wide windows that let in the magical Malibu light. She left Steve at the outdoor shower and entered through the door at the upper deck to avoid disturbing her husband in the game room, where he spent an unhealthy amount of time playing with his expensive toys—pinball machines, model railroads, radio-operated cars, and his favorite, an electronic putting green. Lately, Howard seemed fonder of these acquisitions than he was of her.

  The master bedroom was on the third floor, at the rear of the house, with a view of the sea and the curving coastline. Kris stripped, running the shower hot. Under the steaming spray she shampooed and rinsed her long blond hair.

  Edward, her hairstylist, had repeatedly suggested that she was reaching the stage of life when it was better to wear her hair short. She had finally told him to quit it. She liked her hair long. Anyway, forty wasn’t old. And she could pass for thirty-five in most circumstances. Direct sunlight showed the creases at the corners of her eyes, the gathering tightness around her mouth, the hint of a sag in her cheeks, but while on the air she was lit by diffusion-filtered lights and masked by a layer of makeup that got thicker each year.

  She hated to worry about her looks. It was shallow and stupid, and she had other assets, after all. She could shoot tape and record sound, handle every piece of equipment in an editing booth, write copy, extemporize fluently in the coverage of a breaking story. Few of those skills, however, were required in her present position. For better or worse, she had become a celebrity.

  Draped in a robe, she dried and brushed her hair in front of the big mirror over the bathroom’s marble countertop. The face that looked back at her was strong and Nordic—Kris Andersen had been her maiden name. Her eyes were blue-gray and had the peculiar quality of seeming larger and more intense than ordinary eyes. She had white, perfectly even teeth, and her mouth could execute an impressive variety of smiles, one of many tricks that made her interesting to watch. She knew that if she ever stopped being interesting, she would not be watched for long. Of course, there was one viewer whose attention she would gladly do without—

  She froze, the hairbrush motionless in her hand.

  From the bedroom had come a sound. A rustle of movement, barely audible. It might be Steve or Courtney, the housekeeper, but irrationally she was certain it was him.

  She heard it again—a whisper of motion, the soft scrape of fabric on fabric.

  She turned from the mirror. The hairbrush was her only weapon. Absurdly she raised it like a club, then stepped out of the bathroom, her gaze darting, and there he was by the windows, silhouetted against the vertical blind…

  “Kris? You okay?”

  All the tension leaked out of her, because it was Howard’s voice. She dropped the hairbrush. It thumped on the floor. “Damn,” she breathed. “Don’t do that to me.”

  “Do what?”

  She shook her head, dismissing his question. “I thought you were him,” she said simply.

  Her husband crossed the room to take her hand in his. “Come on, that’s crazy.”

  “I heard someone out here. I thought it might be—well, it could have been…”

  “No, it couldn’t. Not a chance.”

  From a strictly rational standpoint Howard was probably correct. But how could she explain to him that rationality played little part in her fears and nightmares, the false alarms and spasms of panic that made her glance over her shoulder at every stray noise and flicker of shadow?

  “You’re right,” she said, feeling empty. “Guess I’m a little overwrought.”

  He stooped and retrieved her hairbrush, placing it gently in her grasp as if she were a child. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about anything.”

  “Good advice. Hard to follow.”

  He showed her a warm smile that lit up his square, tanned face. After retiring last year at fifty, he had taken to hanging around the house and eating too much. A belt of flab hung around his waist, and his neck had grown thick and loose. “You’re no good at taking orders,” Howard said. “Me, I’m great at it. Travis told me not to worry, and I haven’t.”

  “Your faith is touching.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” His smile faded. “Speaking of Travis, we’ll be late for that meeting if we don’t leave soon.”

  “Give me another minute to get dressed.”

  “Right. See how well I take orders? I’m a natural.” He moved toward the hall.

  She stopped him. “While you’re waiting, could you check the cottage for me?”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “I want to know if he’s called.”

  “Let’s assume he has. How does it help you to find out?”

  “I have to know. If you won’t check, I will.”

  “If you worry about it all the time, it defeats the whole purpose of having Travis’s people around.”

  “Their purpose isn’t to keep me happy. Their purpose is to keep me alive.”

  “You’re getting worked up again.”

  His patronizing tone infuriated her. “I have a right to get worked up. It’s me he’s after. Or is that another thing I’m supposed to not think about?” She turned away, suddenly exhausted. “Check the cottage, all right? I have to get changed.”

  She returned to the bathroom and finished brushing her hair, performing the task with more vigor than necessary. When she emerged, the bedroom was empty. Howard had gone.

  She changed into a pantsuit. At the studio she would put on whatever outfit the clothing coordinator had selected, usually something in blue to bring out her eyes.

  Before leaving the bedroom, she went to the windows for another look at the beach. The tide was going out. Seagulls bobbed and weaved on chancy currents of air. She wished she could sit and watch the birds and not deal with this meeting Travis had called or with anything else, ever.

  Her life had been easier when she was a twenty-two-year-old radio reporter in Duluth, Minnesota. True, there had been no money for rent or food, but she had been too busy to care. Maybe she should have stayed in Duluth, married the junio
r manager at the radio station. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have this hard-edged ambition inside her, driving her to high-profile assignments, more money, more pressure. But there had always been part of her that felt she would die without fame and recognition and strangers turning their heads. Now she had all of that, and because of it—because of one particular stranger whose head she’d turned—she might die anyway.

  Life was a tangle. Her life, at least. Maybe everybody’s.

  Downstairs she found Courtney dusting the autographed golf balls in Howard’s display cabinet. “They’re waiting in the Lincoln,” Courtney said. “Mr. Drury and Mr. Barwood.”

  Kris glanced at her watch. She was running late. Having Steve bring the car out of the garage to idle in the driveway was Howard’s way of telling her so.

  A garden path, bordered by rosebushes, white oleander, and bird-of-paradise, led from the main house to the guest cottage attached to the garage. A gray Lincoln Town Car, the Cartier model, idled in the driveway, Steve Drury at the wheel. The car was her own, but the pleasure of driving it was one more thing Hickle had taken from her.

  Steve got out and opened the rear door for her. He had changed into slacks, a button-down shirt, and a suit jacket that concealed his Beretta. She slipped into the backseat, next to Howard, while Steve slid behind the wheel and adjusted the volume on the Alpine audio system. He was playing a CD of Mozart’s Magic Flute, her favorite. It soothed her.

  The Lincoln pulled out of the driveway and headed down a narrow lane colonnaded with tall eucalyptus trees. At the gate, guards waved the Town Car through, and the sedan accelerated onto Pacific Coast Highway, rushing over the bridge that straddled Malibu Creek. In the lagoon fed by the estuary, a few shore birds lifted themselves into the afternoon sun.

  “Did you check?” she asked Howard tonelessly.

  He acknowledged her only with a half turn in her direction. “I checked. Nothing serious to report.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He called a couple of times this morning. Not since then. It’s been a quiet afternoon. Maybe he’s losing interest.”

  “Sure. Maybe.”

  But she knew Raymond Hickle would never lose interest in her as long as she was alive.

  Hickle sat on the roadside, a hat covering his face, and watched the Town Car pull out of the Malibu Reserve gate. He took a good look at it when it turned onto the coast highway. The car was close; he could see his own reflection in the polished panels of the passenger doors. In the lightly tinted rear window there was the vague outline of a silhouetted figure.

  There was no chance that Kris or her driver would spot him. Sitting cross-legged on the curb, the hat pulled low, he was just one of the many faceless derelicts who wandered through Malibu and other towns along the California coast. He could watch Kris come and go, and no one would be the wiser.

  His gaze followed the car as it disappeared down the road. He kept staring after it even when it was long gone. Then he got up and retraced his steps to his own car, a Volkswagen Rabbit parked on a side street a mile from Malibu Reserve.

  He had no intention of trying to catch up with Kris. Her driver was a security officer trained to spot a pursuing vehicle and take evasive action.

  Even so, he expected to arrive at the studio gate well before she did. She had left earlier than usual, and the route she’d taken—southbound on Pacific Coast Highway, heading toward West LA—was not the most direct way to Burbank.

  He figured she had an appointment to keep. It would occupy her for a half hour or longer. By the time she reached the studio, he would be positioned near the entrance to the parking lot.

  In his car, he had his duffel bag. And in the duffel, he had the shotgun. He imagined holding it now, feeling its sleekness, its smoothness, pumping the action and then the trigger, and the satisfying recoil as the spray of lethal shot fanned wide.

  “Blammo,” Hickle said. He was smiling.

  2

  Abby Sinclair was late and walking fast as she came out of the elevator on the eighteenth floor of the Century City high-rise where Travis Protective Services housed its office suite. She had fixed her hair as best she could in the elevator, but in T-shirt, jeans, and Nikes, she wasn’t exactly dressed for a business meeting.

  At the end of the hall she paused before the double doors emblazoned with the TPS logo. The doors were mirrored, and she was able to ascertain that she looked okay, despite her ensemble. Her reflection stared back at her with cool hazel eyes that revealed little of what she felt inside. Lately, it was just as well that no one knew what she was feeling.

  She entered the reception area, passing through a metal detector, then handed a carry-on bag to the security officer at the front desk. “Came straight from the airport. Keep this nice and safe for me, okay?”

  The guy frowned at her. “I didn’t know you were still working for Travis.”

  “I’ve been away for a while. Now I’m back in the saddle.”

  His frown didn’t waver. “Well, ain’t that great news.”

  She wasn’t surprised at his hostility or at the cool stares that greeted her as she hurried through the maze of corridors. Only a few people at TPS knew exactly what role she had played in the Devin Corbal disaster, but throughout the firm it was common knowledge that she had been involved somehow, and that her involvement had cost Corbal his life.

  She walked past conference rooms, workspaces partitioned into cubicles, and private or semiprivate offices. Roughly half the offices, she noted guiltily, were empty now. TPS was thinning out its staff, making massive cutbacks to stop the hemorrhage of money. Only the most essential employees had been retained, performing the services that were the backbone of the company—threat assessment, personal protection, and investigation. Before long, maybe they would be gone as well, and this office suite would be occupied by insurance salespeople or stockbrokers. She didn’t want to think about that.

  She reached Travis’s corner office and nodded at his assistant, Rose, receiving a squinty glare in return. “You’re late,” Rose said, her tone implying that this was the least of Abby’s sins.

  “Just buzz me in.”

  “Hold on.” Rose took her time activating the intercom. “Mr. Travis? Miss Sinclair is here.”

  Over the cheap speaker, Abby heard Travis’s tinny voice grant her admittance.

  “Yes, sir.” Rose looked at her. “You can go in.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Abby crossed the anteroom to Travis’s door. She was turning the knob when Rose said, “This client’s important to us. You might try keeping her alive.”

  Various rejoinders ran through Abby’s mind. She swallowed them all. Sometimes the best thing to say was nothing at all.

  She entered Travis’s office and found him in conference with a blond woman instantly recognizable as Kris Barwood and a somewhat older, heavyset man who had to be her husband.

  “Better late than never,” Travis said as he rose from behind his desk.

  Et tu, Paul? she thought, but all she said was “My plane was delayed.” Her gaze widened to include everyone in the room. “Sorry to keep you all waiting.”

  Introductions were made. Howard Barwood had a firm handshake of long duration. Kris, no surprise, looked exactly the same in person as she did on TV. Having met a number of celebrities over the past two years, Abby had learned that the beautiful ones really were beautiful. The notion that the camera performed some alchemical transformation of ordinary folks into superstars was a sop to the envious multitudes.

  “You just flew in from out of town?” Howard asked.

  “Yes—which explains my less than professional attire. I only brought casual clothes with me on the trip.”

  “I hope we didn’t interrupt your vacation.”

  “No, I was working another case, actually. Got done last night.”

  “I thought TPS only handled LA clients.”

  “This wasn’t a TPS case. I haven’t worked with TPS”—since Devin Corbal,
she nearly said, but caught herself—“in a few months. I’m an independent consultant. I work with a variety of firms all across the country. Paul left a message on my answering machine yesterday. I got back to him first thing this morning, and he told me a little about the situation you find yourselves in.”

  “Situation.” Kris Barwood leaned forward in her chair, balancing her hands lightly on her knees, a pose she must have learned while doing on-camera interviews. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “I know it feels like a crisis,” Abby said, “but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  Howard snorted. “Tell that to Devin Corbal.”

  For a startled moment Abby wondered how they had found out about her involvement in that case. Then she realized Howard had been looking at Travis when he said it.

  She and Travis were rescued from any response when Kris cut in smoothly, “When you arrived, Paul was just about to explain what it is you’re going to do for me.”

  “I have kind of an unusual job, Mrs. Barwood.”

  “Call me Kris.” The anchorwoman flashed a smile that ought to have looked artificial, but didn’t.

  “Okay, Kris. I’m Abby.”

  Howard spoke up again. “How old are you, Abby, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  His eyelids lifted in skeptical appraisal. “Isn’t that a little young to be a licensed psychologist?”

  “I’m not a licensed psychologist.”

  “Travis here”—Howard cocked a thumb in the direction of the desk—“called you a psychological consultant.”

  “That’s one way of describing the work I do. I call myself a dynamic interpersonal risk evaluator. But there’s a simpler way of putting it. I’m a pilot fish.”

  Kris and her husband exchanged a bemused glance.

  “A pilot fish,” Abby repeated. She tossed her purse on a chair but remained standing. “You know those little fish that swim in the wake of a shark? They gather scraps. So do I. Only, the sharks I swim with are people like Raymond Hickle, and the scraps I gather are scraps of information.”