The Shadow Hunter (12 page)

“Well… no comment.” “That’s what I figured. And if I asked who his new object of affection might be?”

“No comment.”

“You sound like a broken record. Anything else you forgot to ask?”

She almost said no, then changed her mind.

“There is one thing. Any reports of drownings in the Hollywood district?”

“Drownings? You mean, like, little kids who fall in a swimming pool?”

“No, I mean adults… Any unsolved cases like that?

An adult who drowned in a pool or a hot tub, that kind of thing?”

“What would that have to do with Raymond Hickle?”

“Probably nothing. Just a loose end I’m trying to tie up.”

“Well, to answer your question—no, there haven’t been any mysterious, unsolved Hollywood drownings. If there had been, I think the local news would have picked up on it, don’t you?”

“Sure. Of course they would. Sorry I asked.”

“No problem. I’m here to help. To protect and serve, that’s my motto.”

“I’ll see you. Vie.”

“Take care, Abby.”

She ended the call. There was no chance he could have made it home that fast, and besides, she had detected no hesitation or fear when she asked about local drownings. He was in the clear.

That left one other suspect, one who was considerably more obvious than Vie Wyatt.

Abby went inside the building and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. Once inside her apartment, she slipped onto the fire escape, then crept close to Hickle’s bedroom window.

The window was open. From his living room she heard the babble of his TV. Kris Barwood’s voice. She checked her watch—10:40. The late local news on Channel Eight was still in progress.

She leaned over the railing of the fire escape and peered into the living room window two yards away.

The Venetian blind was open, and she could see Hickle clearly, seated on the couch, bare-chested, wearing a pair of ragged shorts, watching the TV in rapt concentration.

He looked as if he had not moved in nearly an hour. Quite possibly he hadn’t. When the news came on, it became the only thing in his world.

Abby retreated inside her apartment and considered the situation.

Wyatt was cleared. And she didn’t think the assailant had been Hickle either.

Then who was it?

Random craziness, she decided, once again replaying Wyatt’s comments on the subject. This was Hollywood.

Plenty of nuts out there.

She had gotten careless and one of them had tried to take advantage.

Maybe meant to kill her and steal her purse. When she fought back, he got scared and ran off. End of story.

The explanation didn’t entirely satisfy her. She wasn’t a big believer in coincidences. But Wyatt and Hickle were off the hook, and there was no one else to suspect.

Was there?

It was past midnight when Howard Barwood climbed the stairs to the bedroom. He’d been out later than expected. Kris was already home. He found her stretched on the bed in her nightgown and slippers.

Her hair had fanned over the pillows, framing her face in a fringe of gold.

“Well, well,” she whispered, her voice flat, “you’re finally back. Out for another drive?”

He nodded, not looking at her.

“Still breaking in the new Lexus. I took it all the way up to Santa Barbara and back.”

“Quite a trip.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t want to talk about this. He crossed to the window and peered out at the moonlit surf pounding the beach.

“Look at those breakers.”

“I’m too tired to look.” Kris sighed.

“You, on the other hand, don’t seem tired at all.”

“Why should I be?”

“All that driving would wear anyone out.”

“It gets me energized.” He wished he could change the subject.

She made a noncommittal sound.

“You do seem a little… agitated.”

“Agitated?” He wanted to sound casual, but the word came out raw and tense.

“Yes, I’d say so. Restless, jumpy, on edge. You didn’t get in an accident, did you?”

“Of course not. Why would you even ask a question like that?”

“You strike me as kind of worked up, that’s all.”

“I’m fine. I like driving the new car. It’s a kick.

Maybe it takes me a little while to come down off the adrenaline high.”

He wondered if she could hear the lie in his voice.

Kris was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, “I guess anything is better than spending time here at the house—or with me.”

He turned away from the window.

“What are you talking about?”

“Lately you’ve been keeping your distance.”

“That’s ridiculous. I went with you to work yesterday, if you recall.

I was at the studio. I was there all night.”

“You were there. But you spent most of your time with Amanda.” Amanda Gilbert was the executive producer of the six o’clock edition of Real News.

“You two were inseparable, at least until she went home at seven-thirty.”

In the stretch of stillness that followed, the roar of the surf was plainly audible even through the double pane windows.

There were many things for Howard to say, but none seemed quite right.

He settled on irony.

“Paranoia’s not a good look for you, Kris,.”

“It’s not paranoia. I saw how you acted around her.

And earlier that afternoon…”

“Yes?”

She averted her gaze.

“Never mind.”

He took a step toward the bed, then stopped. Distantly it occurred to him how absurd it was for a man to hesitate about approaching his own wife in their bedroom.

“Come on,” he said quietly.

“Let’s hear it.

What mortal sin did I commit yesterday afternoon?”

“That woman Travis hired—she’s about Amanda’s age.” The smile that flickered on Kris’s face was one she never used in public. A sad, bitter smile.

“Why is it always the young ones you can’t take your eyes off?

What’s so special about youth anyway? Does a woman fall apart at forty the way a car does when it hits a hundred thousand miles? Or is it just that you always need this year’s model even when the one you’ve got is still running fine?”

“I couldn’t care less about Abby Sinclair.”

“No? You were so vocal in your concern for her safety.” Her voice slipped into a lower register.

“Are you sure you won’t get hurt? Aren’t you taking an awful risk, you poor, brave thing?”

“I think her safety is a legitimate concern. Of course, I realize that in the larger picture it’s only your safety that counts. The slightest threat to you is a national emergency—”

“The slightest threat?” She sat up straight, her hair falling around her shoulders.

“Is that what you think Raymond Hickle represents, a slight threat?”

He wouldn’t back down.

“Under the circumstances…”

“You mean the circumstances of being stalked and harassed and terrorized night and day?”

“I mean the circumstances of being surrounded by armed bodyguards night and day.”

“Devin Corbal was surrounded by armed bodyguards when his stalker shot him.”

Howard spread his hands.

“Well, if you don’t trust Travis to protect you—”

“This isn’t about Travis.”

“So what the hell is it about?”

Abruptly she let her head fall back on the pillow.

“What do you think?”

Finally he took the three steps that brought him to her bedside. He stood looking down at her.

“What am I supposed to do, Kris?” he asked softly.

“What do you want me to do?”

“What I want…” She rolled her head in his direction, swept a tangle of hair from her face.

“What I want is for you to look at me the way you look at those other women. Younger women.”

“I do, all the time.” The words sounded false even as he pronounced them.

“Do you? When was the last time we… ?” Weariness overtook her.

“Oh, never mind.”

He knew that if he took no action now, she would hate him in the morning. She had asked him as plainly as she could’, as openly as pride would allow.

“It’s been too long,” he murmured. It was the closest he could come to an apology.

She looked at him, wariness and hope mingled in her expression.

“Yes.” Her tone was neutral, giving him nothing.

Now was the moment for him to kiss her. Now was his opportunity to heal the breach between them.

He couldn’t.

“It’s this craziness with Hickle,” he said dully.

“Once that’s past and things are back to normal, we’ll be the way we were. We have to wait it out, that’s all.”

“Is that what we have to do?” Kris whispered.

“Just until this is all settled and we can breathe again.”

She didn’t answer.

“I think I’ll fix something to eat,” Howard said, though he wasn’t hungry.

“Can I bring you anything?”

She shook her head slowly.

“I’m going to sleep.”

“That’s the best thing. Rest. Put everything out of your mind.” He reached out and clumsily stroked her hair, his nearest imitation of affection.

“It’ll all be behind us soon.”

She was silent.

Howard left Kris in the bedroom and went downstairs, wishing it was still possible for him to love his wife.

Hickle couldn’t sleep.

He rolled over and stared at the glowing dial of his bedside alarm clock. The time was 2:19. He had to get up in three hours. His shift started at 6 a.m.” and he was always punctual.

The smart thing to do was just close his eyes and relax. Sleep would come, if he let it. He was sure it would.

Instead, hating himself, he slipped out of bed and picked a pair of pants and a shirt out of his laundry basket, pulling them on. Then he removed the screen from his bedroom window and crept onto the landing of the fire’ escape His new neighbor’s bedroom shared a wall with his own. The landing afforded access to her window. He approached, bending low. Her bedroom was dark, the window shut, the Venetian blind closed. But the blind was old and warped, and through gaps in the horizontal slats he could dimly make out Abby Gallagher, asleep in her bed, limned by moonlight.

He knelt, pressing his face close to the window, watching her sleep.

She was pretty, all right. She reminded him of Jill.

Of course, they looked nothing alike. Jill had been taller and blond and almost severe in her beauty. She had looked a little like Kris, now that he thought about it. Funny how that had never occurred to him before.

Abby, smaller, dark-haired, was not at all like Jill or Kris in physical appearance. Still, she was not unattractive.

Her eyes, he remembered, were hazel, and her skin was smooth. There were faint freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her mouth was a perfect shape—what people called a kissable mouth, he supposed.

No, she did not resemble Jill. Why, then, did she remind him of her?

Maybe because, like Jill, she had been nice to him. She had smiled and made small talk.

She had been friendly. Just as Jill had been—in the early stages of their relationship, at least.

Later, when he had tried to get serious with her, to express his feelings, Jill had rebuffed him. She had tried to give him the brushoff.

He wondered if Abby would do the same, if he tried to get to know her better. He hoped not. He wouldn’t want things to get ugly with her, the way they had with Jill.

Toward the end, he had gotten a little bit crazy about Jill Dahlbeck.

He had enough distance, enough maturity, to recognize that fact now.

The business with the acid, for instance. That had really been uncalled for.

It was ordinary battery acid, which he had collected in a jar. He remembered waiting for Jill to leave her acting class, following her with his gaze as she separated from the other students and walked down the dark side street where her car was parked. Then when she was a few yards from the car, her keys jangling in her hand-He’d leaped up out of hiding. Splashed the acid at her. He could still see the long fluid arc launching into space.

Her face had been the target. He had wanted her scarred, blinded. He had wanted to do something to her that was so terrible and so ineradicable that she could never forget.

But he’d failed. She had seen the flash of movement and instinctively pivoted away, and the acid had spattered her coat, ruining it but doing no further damage.

He had run, cursing his bad luck. For years afterward he had relived that moment, wishing he could have another shot at her. For a time he had considered tracking her down—he suspected she had returned to Wisconsin—and doing something to her. Kidnapping her, maybe, and taking her into the woods.

Now, however, he was past all that. He no longer had any feelings toward Jill. He had scarcely thought of her in the past year. Not since he had encountered Kris. She was the one for him, the only one.

Jill could not compare. Neither could Abby, not by a long shot.

Still, Abby had smiled at him so sweetly… He studied her, fascinated. She lay on her side, facing him. In the moonlight her skin had a porcelain quality. A wisp of hair draped her forehead, fluttering faintly in the breeze stirred by her breath.

In some ways she was even prettier than Jill. Of course, she wouldn’t be so pretty with a cupful of acid searing the skin of her face.

He didn’t expect it to come to that. He really didn’t.

Still, you never could tell.

The first night in a new place was always the hardest.

Abby woke at 6 a.m. stiff from the unfamiliar mattress.

Some noise from the parking lot had awakened her, she guessed. She lay still for a moment, adjusting to the reality of her surroundings. The sun was rising, and its glow through the slats of the Venetian blind painted the bedroom in orange stripes. She saw cracks in the ceiling plaster, a furry patina of dust on the dresser, a cigarette burn in the short-nap carpet.

“Why aren’t there any rich stalkers?” she wondered aloud.

“This job would be more fun if I had to infiltrate a fashionable cul-de-sac in Bel-Air.”

She rose from bed and looked out the window.

Hickle’s Volkswagen, which was normally parked under one of the carports on the opposite side of the parking lot from her Dodge, was gone. He must have left for the donut shop sometime earlier.