MIchael Prescott: The Shadow hunter

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 crewcut. 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 junior 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.