The Shadow Hunter

by Michael Prescott

  Howard Barwood loved games. The game room had been his inspiration, and nearly all of its contents were his purchases—pinball machine, jukebox, virtual reality gaming system, foosball table, casino-style craps table, billiards table, and a fleet of radio-operated cars. He’d spent more than fifty thousand dollars on these and similar items, not to mention the sixty-five thousand he’d just paid for the new Lexus LS 400 sedan that he had taken on so many long, nighttime drives.

  Expensive toys for a man who’d never fully grown up. His boyishness was something she had loved about him during their courtship. She was less charmed by it now.

  “I’m on fire today,” he said, lining up the next putt. “Those chumps over at the country club had better watch out.”

  Kris tried to find a smile but couldn’t summon one. “Maybe you should join the seniors’ tour.”

  “I just might.”

  “I’ll have Courtney clear a space on the mantel for your trophy.” She headed for the stairs, then turned back, remembering why she’d tracked him down in the first place. “I’m off to work.”

  He glanced up, neglecting his game for the first time. “So soon?”

  “I have an errand to run before I go to the studio.”

  “Running errands is Courtney’s job.”

  “This is personal.” Under other circumstances she might have shared it with him, but not after last night. She had reached out to him, and he had rebuffed her. Well, he did grow tired of his toys when their novelty wore off. Even his costliest acquisitions lost their shine after a while.

  The Town Car was idling in the driveway when she walked down the garden path. Steve let her into the backseat, then got behind the wheel and shifted into drive. “I’d like to take the surface streets today,” she told him as they approached the front gates of the Reserve.

  “Ventura Freeway’s faster.”

  “No, let’s go south, through the city. We have time.”

  He nodded, asking no questions.

  Kris was silent until the Town Car reached Hollywood. Then she requested a detour. “Take me past Hickle’s apartment building.”

  She watched Steve’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They narrowed slightly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kris.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t. Do it anyway.”

  “It’s against procedure. I could get in trouble—”

  “You won’t.”

  “Travis would have my ass.”

  “I’ll handle Travis if he ever finds out, which he won’t because neither of us is going to tell him. Just do it.”

  “Okay…but why?”

  “I honestly can’t say.”

  Steve took Santa Monica Boulevard to Gainford, Hickle’s street, and turned south. “That’s his address,” he said as the Town Car prowled slowly down the street. Kris looked at the Gainford Arms, a faded 1930s complex with glass lobby doors scratched by vandals, tiers of small windows that looked dirty, and unadorned brick walls.

  The street was lined with Indian laurel trees that had matured nicely. Otherwise it was bare of charm or beauty. She saw a tramp rolling a pushcart laden with old newspapers and other trash. He did not look out of place.

  This was Hickle’s world. She thought of Abby Sinclair living here for the next few days or weeks. Could she have gotten to know him yet? It seemed too soon. Probably it would take her a week simply to establish contact. How long before she learned anything of value? The scheme seemed hopeless, and Kris had agreed to it only out of desperation. Howard had worried about Abby’s safety, but Kris was past the point of concerning herself with other people. What motivated her was survival, purely selfish. To save herself, she would underwrite any risk.

  “Seen enough?” Steve asked as Hickle’s building retreated.

  “Plenty. Let’s get on the freeway.”

  She took a last look at the block as Steve turned the corner. The neighborhood reminded her of places she had lived in the earliest years of her career. Hickle’s neighbors would be loud and close, his plumbing would often fail, bugs would scuttle through his pantry. In the hot season of September and October, his apartment would broil, and he would lie awake in the sweltering darkness. Every day he would head off to his minimum-wage job knowing he had nothing to come home to.

  She was sure he wasn’t happy, and she felt glad about that.

  “You don’t have an appointment, Miss Sinclair.” Travis’s assistant, Rose, smiled up at Abby from behind her desk, relishing her temporary exercise of power.

  Abby restrained herself from sidestepping the desk and simply barging into the office. “No, I don’t. What I do have, however, is an important piece of information your boss needs to hear.”

  “Perhaps I could pass it along.”

  “Perhaps you could buzz him on the intercom and get his ass out here now.”

  Rose yielded. “I’ll see if he’s available,” she said tonelessly, adding as a final jab, “We really do insist on making appointments in advance.”

  Abby shrugged. “Looks like I’m breaking all the rules.”

  She waited impatiently for Travis to come out. Distantly she was conscious of being tired, but she wouldn’t permit herself to acknowledge the feeling. There was too much left to do.

  After leaving Hickle’s apartment, she had set up the monitoring gear that received the audio and video signals from the bugs she’d planted. A late lunch, eaten while standing up in her kitchen, had revived her somewhat. At three thirty she had left the apartment building and headed to Century City. She needed to be back before five. She had plans for the evening.

  Finally Travis emerged from his office, wearing his trademark navy jacket, open-collar shirt, and tan slacks. “What’s up? Need more dates of birth?”

  “Not this time.”

  “What was that all about, anyway?”

  “I had to open a combination lock.”

  “Oh. You could have explained that.”

  “I enjoyed leaving you in the dark. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Just my daily session with our chief financial officer. He’s quantifying exactly how much red ink TPS is bleeding on a week-by-week basis. It’s a meeting I can do without.”

  “Is there someplace we can talk?” She wanted to deprive Rose of the chance to eavesdrop.

  Travis led her down the hall to a conference room. Paintings of seascapes and meadows ornamented the mahogany walls—safe, non-threatening subjects, intended to soothe clients unnerved by whatever crisis had driven them here. She wondered how many times the glamorous and powerful had gathered in this room, seeking comfort from the man in the blue blazer and tan slacks, their protector.

  Travis shut the door, and Abby sat on the edge of the long table, swinging one leg. The lacquered tabletop caught her reflection. Irrelevantly she wished she were wearing better clothes. Her faded blouse and jeans felt shabby in this room.

  “Okay,” she began, “here’s the thing. The lock I opened was in Hickle’s apartment. I was in there to establish audiovisual surveillance and to do a little snooping around. I found a bunch of Polaroids. Pictures of Kris jogging on the beach. Her outfit varied. He watched her a minimum of three times. I assume Kris jogs right outside her house?”

  Travis didn’t answer for a moment. He seemed to have trouble absorbing the news. “Yes, every day. She’s accompanied by a bodyguard, but he usually hangs back a little.”

  “There was no bodyguard in these shots. He must have been out of frame. Doesn’t matter anyway. A bodyguard wouldn’t have done much good if Hickle had opened fire.”

  “Does he have a gun?”

  “At least two. Twelve-gauge shotgun and semiautomatic hunting rifle. The rifle’s equipped with a scope and a laser sighting system, but the shotgun seems to be his weapon of choice.”

  “A laser sight…” Travis moved to the wide windows and stood gazing out, shoulders sagging, head downcast. He looked more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. “So how serious do you think he is?” he ask
ed quietly.

  “I’m proceeding on the assumption that he’s entirely serious. In fact, he may have already acted out his rage against another woman he was stalking.”

  “What?”

  She told him about Jill Dahlbeck. “But we don’t know Hickle was behind that attack,” she added. “Even if he was, it doesn’t seem to have been attempted murder, and he carried it out so badly that the only physical damage was to Jill’s coat. Of course, the emotional damage is a different story.”

  “Yes,” Travis said distractedly. She knew he tuned her out whenever the subject of emotions came up. “The important point is that if he did attack this other woman, it shows he’s capable of going beyond fantasy, of actually taking action.”

  “He was younger then, maybe more reckless. He may be more cautious now. We don’t know.”

  “But we do know he’s at least gotten within striking distance of Kris.” Travis expelled a breath. “How could he get that close? The Reserve has tight security. Perimeter fencing, a gatehouse manned by two guards, and two more guards in constant patrol.”

  “Have you checked the fence for signs of egress?”

  “Sure. That was one of the first things we did. The fence is heavy-gauge steel wire topped with razor-wire coils.”

  “Wire can be cut.”

  “We didn’t find any gaps.”

  “Have your people checked recently?”

  “Daily.” He moved away from the window, circling the room.

  Her gaze followed the sweep of his reflection on the long table’s glossy surface. “You’d better have them look again, more closely,” she said. “Is there any other way into the compound?”

  “The gate, but it’s always guarded.”

  “How carefully do they screen delivery trucks, visitors, repairmen?”

  “Most of the Reserve’s security officers are retired cops. They’re pretty sharp. And they’ve got Hickle’s photo posted inside the guardhouse. I don’t think he could get by them.”

  “What about the beach? It can’t be completely sealed off. Below the high tide mark it’s public property, like all California beaches.”

  “True. There’s a fence at the boundary, but it doesn’t go far into the water, and anybody could step around it. But we’ve covered that angle too. We installed a hidden camera that feeds a live image of the beach access point to the Barwoods’ guest cottage. The agents stationed there monitor the video at all times.”

  “Unless they screwed up, got careless.”

  “Once, maybe. Not three times.”

  “Well, however he did it, Hickle found a way in, and he can do it again. Next time he may bring a gun instead of a camera, and then…”

  Travis looked away. “Devin Corbal, part two.”

  Abby winced. “That’s not how I would put it.”

  “Sorry. You know what I mean.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  The air-conditioning system hummed, and somewhere far below, a siren fluttered past. Abby wondered if she ought to mention the other significant development of the past twenty-four hours—the attack that had nearly taken her life last night.

  She decided not to. She had no idea how to make sense of that incident, no idea if it even tied into the Barwood case. And she didn’t want Travis second-guessing his decision to bring her in. She didn’t want him to think she was in over her head…so to speak.

  “It won’t end up like the Corbal case,” she said quietly. “I won’t let it.”

  “I wasn’t trying to imply…” His words trailed off.

  She finished for him. “That I was responsible for what happened to Corbal?”

  “You weren’t, Abby.”

  “Maybe not. But the fact remains that he’s dead, and you’re meeting every day with your CFO to figure out how to keep this company running with a skeleton crew, and sometimes it sure as hell feels like it was my fault.”

  “I told you before, you’re too hard on yourself. Look, forget I ever mentioned Corbal, all right?”

  “Sure. Forgotten.” But she knew it wasn’t and couldn’t be.

  “Anything more to tell me?”

  “Lots, but it’ll have to wait.” She hopped off the table and slung her handbag over her shoulder. “You’d better resume number crunching, and I have to get back to Hollywood. I have a big night planned.”

  “Do you?”

  Abby nodded. “Hickle doesn’t know it yet, but he’s taking me out on a date.”

  15

  Wyatt knew he ought to stop thinking about her. It was stupid, the way he couldn’t get her out of his head. He wasn’t the type to lose control over a woman. It wasn’t like he was desperate or anything. He’d never had trouble with the opposite sex. In high school and college he’d played football, and he could vouch that everything ever whispered or imagined about the private lives of cheerleaders was true. He hadn’t done too shabbily as a cop either. That cliché about how women preferred a guy in uniform—he had verified it. Repeatedly.

  All in all, there was absolutely no reason for him to be tooling down Wilshire Boulevard at four thirty in the afternoon on his way to Abby’s condo.

  Probably she wouldn’t be home. Most people were at their place of employment during the day. They didn’t get stuck on the night watch, working from 6 P.M. to 2 A.M.—his current schedule from Thursday through Monday. Still, he had a feeling Abby didn’t keep regular hours, and he wasn’t sure she had a place of employment to go to.

  He parked his Camaro on a side street and walked past dainty one-story houses cowering in the shadow of the Wilshire Royal, then took a shortcut across the oval of manicured grass that bordered the Royal’s driveway. The sky was blue and cloudless, reflected in fourteen floors of windowpanes, and a breeze from the ocean a few miles away flapped the flags in the forecourt.

  As he approached the lobby, he found himself self-consciously brushing his hair with his fingers. He wondered if he looked okay in his civilian clothes. Then he wondered why it mattered. Come on, this was no big deal, right? He was just dropping by. He’d been in the neighborhood, and since he had some free time before work he would see if Abby wanted to grab a cup of coffee. That was his story, and he meant to stick to it.

  The doorman nodded at him in a way that seemed disapproving. Wyatt ignored the guy. He focused on the two guards at the desk. One was young and had a shaved head. His partner was older and rumpled.

  “I’m here to see Miss Sinclair,” Wyatt said. For some reason he added, “I don’t think she’s expecting me.”

  The guards exchanged a glance. The older one answered, “Miss Sinclair isn’t here.”

  “Oh.” So he’d missed her. He should have figured. “Well, maybe I can leave a message.”

  “Don’t know when she’ll be back. She’s out of town.”

  “She is?”

  Shrug. “She travels a lot. Hardly ever see her.”

  The younger guy spoke up. “You’re not in software, are you?”

  Wyatt was baffled by the question. “Software?”

  “Her gig. Thought maybe you were in the same line.”

  “I run a web commerce distribution center,” Wyatt said smoothly, stringing words together with no particular regard to their meaning. “Abby’s working with us on a project. Upgrading our server capabilities, developing some multitasking options.”

  “That’s cool.” The young man nodded as if he understood. Maybe he did. Maybe everything Wyatt had said actually made sense. “Hey, I’m always looking for freebies. You got any beta testing you want done, I’m there.”

  “Not right now, sorry. You, uh, get any freebies from Abby?”

  “Nah. She said it was against company policy. Which is weird, because she calls herself a consultant. What’s the good of being a consultant if you gotta play by somebody else’s rules?”

  “I’m pretty sure Miss Sinclair plays by her own rules,” Wyatt said quietly. “She been out of town long?”

  “Left yesterday—”

&nbs
p; His partner cut him off. “We can’t give out that information.”

  You already did, Wyatt thought. “No problem,” he said cheerfully. “I was just wondering. Thanks for your time.” He headed for the door.

  “Didn’t you want to leave her a message?” the older guard asked in a mildly suspicious tone.

  “I’ll send her an e-mail. That’s the best way to reach her. She spends most of her life online.”

  He escaped into the sunlight before the guard could ask a follow-up. Walking back to his car, Wyatt considered what he had learned. Abby wasn’t home. She had been gone since yesterday. The building staff thought she was an independent consultant in the software field. They seemed to have the impression that she was on a business trip. Such trips evidently were frequent.

  Except she wasn’t on any trip. Wyatt had eaten dinner with her last night. She was in town, but not here, not at her home.

  He thought about the old Dodge clunker she’d been driving. It couldn’t be her regular car; it didn’t fit into this neighborhood. Still, there were parts of town where the Dodge wouldn’t look out of place. East LA, Venice, Hollywood…

  Hickle lived in Hollywood.

  Wyatt stopped. He stood very still, putting it together. “No,” he said aloud. “She wouldn’t. She’d have to be nuts.”

  Across the street a woman tending her rosebushes cast an apprehensive gaze in his direction.

  He drove into Hollywood, calling the dispatch center on his cell phone to obtain Raymond Hickle’s address. Hickle’s apartment building was the Gainford Arms. Wyatt knew the place. An old brick pile four stories high, ugly and dilapidated, the walls webbed with taggers’ marks. He had answered many calls at that building when he was riding patrol. The lifestyle of the rich and famous was not lived there.

  Wyatt reached the Gainford Arms by five o’clock. He pulled into the parking lot and scanned the rows of cars, looking for a white Dodge. There wasn’t one. Maybe he’d been wrong, after all. Maybe Abby wasn’t mixed up in anything as reckless and crazy as he’d feared. He hoped so.