MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

She confided in me after… after Howard came on to her."

"Right in your own house? Divorce the bastard."

"We can work it out."

"Not if you two don't start talking."

"We will when this stalker thing is over. When it's taken care of."

Amanda sighed.

"I thought you two were a happy couple. You know, the kind who get a perfect score on the Cosmo compatibility test."

"I used to think we were. Now I don't… I…" She couldn't talk about this anymore.

"Look, I just wanted to say I'm sorry if he was getting in your way last night."

"Forget about it." Amanda glanced at her watch.

"I've gotta run, but tomorrow if we have time, let's talk, okay? Heart to heart?"

Kris smiled.

"I never took you for the sob sister type."

"It's an unfamiliar role for me, but I can handle it."

She gave Kris's arm a comforting squeeze.

"Hang in there, kid."

Kris watched her walk away. She knew there would be no heart-to-heart conversation tomorrow, because there would be no time. In TV news there was never time for anything. That was all right. She wasn't sure she wanted to further unburden herself to a woman who, after all, was one of Howard's fantasy conquests.

She looked past the computers and gray metal desks to the row of wall clocks set to different time zones.

California time was seven-forty-five. Better get moving.

She needed to grab a late dinner and read the script and touch up her cosmetics and hair. Of these three items her personal appearance was the main concern.

It seemed she spent a lot more time in the makeup room since turning forty.

"Funny how that works," she murmured. She must have a streak of masochism to have chosen a profession in which success was so utterly dependent on youth and beauty, then to have compounded her error by choosing a husband whose priorities ran along the same lines.

Hickle knew there must be something he could say to bring his date with Abby to the proper conclusion.

In the movies people were always saying clever things. Why was it so much harder in real life?

He mulled over the problem as the elevator carried him and Abby to the fourth floor. Even when he escorted her down the hall to her door, he had not found a solution.

"Well," Abby said, "here we are."

This was his moment. He had to go for it. Be spontaneous.

"It was fun," he managed.

Damn, that was no good. Any jerk could have come up with that. But Abby surprised him by smiling in reply.

"A blast," she said.

"Your taste in restaurants is excellent."

"Oh, well… I work in a restaurant, remember?" He wasn't sure why he repeated his earlier lie.

"I remember. Maybe I'll drop by sometime for a free meal."

Caught, he had to think fast.

"The owner frowns on that," he answered, hoping he sounded casual.

"But you never know. We'll see." He decided to quit while he still could.

"Good night, Abby."

"Night."

He wondered if he was supposed to kiss her. He had never kissed a girl, except for Priscilla Gammon in the third grade, whom he had smooched on a dare.

Priscilla had screamed and called him gross and wiped her mouth elaborately with her sleeve, and for the next two weeks whenever she had seen him she'd made retching noises. He doubted Abby would do anything like that. Still, he'd better not risk it.

"Good night," he said again, pointlessly.

Abby smiled, unlocking her door.

"Don't let the bedbugs bite-which in this place is more than just an expression."

He nodded, not knowing what to say. He went on nodding until she disappeared inside her apartment.

Then he found his keys and entered his living room. It occurred to him that he ought to check the VCR to be sure it had taped the 6 p.m. news, but somehow this didn't seem important, and he decided it could wait.

He wandered into the bathroom, not knowing why, and left without doing anything. He opened his windows, letting the night breeze filter through the swinging blinds. The cool air felt fine. In the kitchen he poured himself some water and drank it fast, belching pleasurably.

He looked around at his apartment, and although it had always looked like a dump to him, tonight it seemed better, almost livable. He thought his life was pretty good, better than he had realized, and he wondered why he should be feeling that way.

Well, it was Abby, of course. They'd had a great time together. When the check had come, impulsively he'd insisted on paying it, though she had offered to pay half. He had wanted to treat her to the meal because that was the kind of thing a man would do, and it wasn't often he got to feel like a man.

Certainly Jill Dahlbeck had never let him feel that way. He remembered summoning the courage to ask her out, and the strained, false politeness in her voice as she turned him down, giving some weak excuse. He had hated her in that moment and for years afterward.

She had emasculated him, humiliated him, as women always did, because all women were bitches at heart, bitches and lying whores-He calmed himself. Not all women, he reminded himself. Not Abby. She was different. She had to be.

The phone rang.

He looked at it, astonished. Nobody ever called him.

It had to be a wrong number.

Unless it was Abby. Had she gotten his number?

Was she calling to talk? He picked up the phone, his hand trembling a little.

"Hello?" he said into the mouthpiece.

Silence for a moment, and then a female voice said, "You have mail."

Not Abby's voice. He wasn't sure it was even human. It sounded false, electronic. Baffled, he pressed the receiver closer to his ear.

"Who is this?

Hello?" The voice said again, "You have mail."

Click. A dial tone hummed.

Slowly he set down the phone. He understood now.

The voice had been a recording, the kind that greeted users of an Internet service provider when they logged on.

It meant the user had email.

In her bedroom with the lights out, Abby sat curled on the floor watching closed-circuit, real-time coverage of Raymond Hickle's living room. The video image was crisp and stable on the seven-inch picture tube of a portable TV tuned to an amateur frequency.

The TV-which Abby had brought from home, not trusting the antiquated set provided by the landlord-sat atop a VCR capable of recording forty hours of time-lapse video on a standard VHS cassette.

Audio from the two surveillance microphones was received on a stereo deck and recorded on a longplaying tape reel. Both audio transmitters operated at one of the standard frequencies for cordless telephones.

Anyone who happened to intercept the signal and heard Hickle's mutterings would assume it was a stray, indecipherable telephone call.

Abby had set up the gear in her bedroom closet so that it could be easily hidden behind the closet door whenever she left. Not expecting her efforts to yield significant results right away, she'd been paying only desultory attention to tonight's broadcast until Hickle's telephone rang.

She saw him answer the phone, and via the surveillance microphone she heard him say hello and ask who was there. But she didn't know what, if anything, was said on the other end of the line. She found herself wishing she'd taken the risk of installing an infinity transmitter in the phone.

Hickle hung up and stood unmoving for a moment, then stepped into his bedroom, out of camera range. A minute passed before he emerged, carrying his duffel bag. The look on his face was grim. He left his apartment, moving fast.

"What the hell?" Abby was already on her feet, grabbing her purse. She ran to her door but hesitated.

Hickle might still be in the hall. She peered out. At the far end of the corridor the elevator doors were closing.

She pounded down three flights of stairs. When she reached the parking lot, Hickle's car was already gone.