MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

She wished she had brought her locksmith kit, which contained a thin, flexible celluloid strip that could slip into the crack of a door and open a latch. It might have allowed her the leverage to work the screen loose.

She couldn't take the time to go back inside her apartment and get the kit. Rummaging in her purse, she found a Swiss army knife. Among its spring loaded tools was a pair of wire cutters. She snipped through part of the screen, inserted her fingers in the gap, and lifted the screen out of the window frame, then climbed into the apartment.

The code for the call return service was the star key followed by 6 and 9. Abby punched the three buttons and listened as a synthesized voice gave her the most recent caller's phone number. It was a local number with an unfamiliar exchange. She dictated it into her micro recorder Later she could look it up. She subscribed to an online reverse directory service that offered a comprehensive listing of residential and commercial phone numbers.

There was one more item of business in Hickle's apartment. She'd brought an infinity transmitter from her tool kit; it broadcast on the same frequency as the two microphones she had already installed.

Quickly she wired the transmitter into the base of the telephone.

Hickle could see it if he took the trouble to look, but this was a chance she'd decided to take. If the mystery caller phoned again, she wanted his voice on tape. A voiceprint could then be made for purposes of identification.

Done with the phone, she wiped off her prints. Mission accomplished.

Time to blow this joint.

She returned to Hickle's bedroom, intending to make her escape through the window, then paused, noticing his laundry basket on the floor. It was still full to the brim. He had never put away his clothes.

Odd. He'd had plenty of time.

She knelt and rummaged through the clothes, not sure what she was looking for. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except that a few items seemed curiously damp, though the rest were dry.

Almost as if a wet article of clothing had been stuffed into the basket… She touched the carpet and felt a wet spot, then another and another. The trail of drops led to the bathroom.

In Hickle's shower, hanging from the showerhead, dripping dry, was a pair of white high-cut Maidenform briefs.

Hers, of course.

When she'd sensed a presence in the laundry room, she had not been imagining things. Hickle had been watching her. He must have taken cover in the stairwell, and when she'd explored the boiler room, he had risked slipping past her and stealing this particular item right out of the washing machine.

His prize. His little piece of her, to touch and smell and kiss…

Abby shivered. She had a sudden urge to grab the poor, wrinkled, soggy thing that hung on the showerhead and abscond with it, but she couldn't.

If it was missing, Hickle would know she had been in here.

She would have to leave it. And she would try not to think about what he would use it for.

She left the bathroom and braced herself against the bedroom window, preparing to climb through, and then she looked past the railing, down at the parking lot.

Hickle's car was there.

It was parked under the carport, headlights off.

Hickle himself was nowhere in sight. He must already be inside the building, maybe riding the elevator to the fourth floor.

Get out, a voice in Abby's mind yelled.

Hickle would be enraged to find her here. And he was armed; he'd taken the duffel bag. Her Smith amp; Wesson was a poor match for a shotgun.

Unless she killed him instantly, he would have time to pump out a couple of shells, and at close range even a single shotgun blast would literally tear her apart.

"Oh, that's good, Abby," she hissed, scrambling through the window.

"Keep thinking those happy thoughts."

She was on the fire escape. Her instinct was to scurry to the safety of her bedroom, but she couldn't leave until the window screen had been replaced.

Installing the screen from outside was harder than she'd expected. She got hold of it through the gap she'd cut in the mesh, then jammed the top of the screen into the frame, but the bottom stubbornly refused to snap into position. The panel was large and awkward, difficult to maneuver, especially with the Venetian blind in the way, jangling and clattering.

She heard a squeal of hinges. Hickle's door, opening in the other room.

He was home.

With a last effort she wedged the screen in place.

Footsteps inside the apartment. He was coming into the bedroom, probably to put away the duffel bag.

She ducked low. No time to crawl away. She hugged the wall.

The blind swung and rattled in the bedroom window.

Hickle would surely notice. He did. She heard the complaint of the floorboards as he approached to investigate. She unclasped her purse and curled her finger over the Smith's trigger.

The blind opened, brightening the fire escape. She pressed close to the brick wall under the windowsill.

Across the iron railing loomed Hickle's shadow, large and misshapen.

His head tilted at a funny angle. He was peering out, surveying the night.

If he glanced down, he would see her. She waited, not breathing. She thought again of what a shotgun shell would do to her at this distance.

Like a grenade going off in her chest.

He might have spotted her already. Even now he might be removing the shotgun from his duffel, preparing to fire, while she huddled like a child playing hide-'n'-seek. It took all her willpower to remain motionless.

His shadow shifted. She saw a movement of his arm as if lifting the shotgun-Then there was a metallic clatter and a fall of darkness, and she realized he had merely reached up to pull the cord that closed the blind.

The tramp of his footsteps retreated. He had not seen her. He must have concluded that a gust of wind had set the blind swaying.

Close one, Abby thought. Kind of thing that really gets the blood circulating.

She slipped inside her apartment, then spent the next few minutes reacquainting herself with the experience of being alive and intact and ambulatory. Her throat was dry, and the back of her neck was stiff with tension.

When she checked the current programming on the closed-circuit TV monitor, she saw Hickle pacing his living room. He was agitated. He was angry.

She dialed up the volume, trying to catch the words he muttered under his breath.

"Can't trust anybody," he was saying.

"Can't trust him… or her. Can't trust either one."

Abby didn't like the sound of that.

Travis stepped out of the shower, throwing on his -L robe, and heard the chime of his doorbell.

Seven-thirty in the morning seemed early for visitors.

He rarely had company anyway. He lived on a twisting dead-end street in the Hollywood Hills, in a ranch-style house cantilevered over a canyon-a good house for entertaining, but he preferred to pass his time alone.

He wedged moccasins onto his feet and padded down the hall, pausing in an alcove before a video monitor that displayed a view of the front steps. Abby stood there in a rumpled blouse and jeans. His first thought was that she looked different. There was something about her expression, something hard to define. Then he realized it was the first time he had ever seen her looking scared.

He shut off his alarm system and opened the door.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey" She entered without another word. She hardly seemed to see him at all.

"Everything okay?" Travis asked, knowing it wasn't.

"Not exactly." Abby sidestepped into the living room and tossed her purse on the sofa but didn't sit.

"Hickle may have an accomplice."

"Accomplice?"

"Or an informant. I don't know for sure. Actually I don't know anything for sure." She paced, her Nikes squeaking on the hardwood floor. Sunbeams slanting through the deck's glass doors lit her trim, nervous figure. She had been to the house many times over the years, though rarely without calling first. Travis was always struck by how well she fit in here. His decor was sleek and functional in a starkly modernistic style, and Abby suited it-Abby with her slender legs and narrow waist and supple, elongated neck.