MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

"So who gave you the nine-one tip?"

"Anonymous female."

"Any idea who?"

"Probably Barth's housekeeper. That's always been my theory, anyway.

She came into his house twice a week to pick up after him. I figure she stumbled across the stuff while she was cleaning and realized it was hot."

"Why was it just a theory? Wouldn't she talk to you?"

"I never found her. She must've amscrayed out of town after making the phone call. I'm guessing she was worried the charges against Barth wouldn't stick, and he'd come after her. They stuck, though. He's tucked away safe and sound."

"Had she worked for him long?"

"The housekeeper? Just a month, I think."

"What was her name?"

"Hell, I don't know anymore. Wait a minute, it's coming back to me.

You know, if my wife was here, she'd say an elephant never forgets.

That would be in reference to a few pounds I've put on over the years."

"The name?" Wyatt prompted.

"Connie Hammond. Fairly common name, hard to track down. We didn't bust our asses trying to find her."

Wyatt nodded slowly.

"Connie Hammond."

Cahill gave Wyatt a hard look.

"You wouldn't happen to know Miss. Hammond's whereabouts, would you.

Vie?"

"Me? No."

"Cause I'd still like to chat with her, just for the record."

"Never met the lady."

"Right. Sure you haven't. You don't know shit. And this whole conversation, dragging me out here on a Friday afternoon to this friggin' mud hole-it's all just an exercise in intellectual curiosity on your part."

Wyatt met his gaze.

"Exactly, Sam. That's what it is."

They talked a little more, about fishing and Cahill's wife and a homicide in the Valley that was taking up most of the detective's time.

Then Cahill was on his way, and Wyatt was left alone, looking at the water.

The reservoir was a peaceful spot, a haven for joggers and power walkers and people who wanted someplace tranquil to visit on their lunch break.

He came here fairly often to escape the grit and gridlock of the city, and to think. He had a lot to think about right now.

Abby had interviewed him about Emanuel Barth just a month before Barth went back to jail. Wyatt had always assumed it was no coincidence. At the time he'd thought that in the course of her research, she had uncovered some incriminating fact that she'd passed along to the police.

He had never inquired about it. He hadn't wanted to know too much.

Later, as she involved herself in other cases, he began to suspect that she was doing more than research.

Vaguely he'd imagined that she tailed a suspect or observed him from a distance. Surveillance work, maybe a few discreet payoffs to informers.

Now he knew there was more to it than that.

A jogger chuffed past him, red-faced and sweaty.

Somewhere a bird lifted off the reservoir in a clatter of wings. Wyatt watched it fly away into the deep azure of the sky, and briefly he wished he could follow.

Cahill's reading of the Barth case had made sense, with no more loose ends than any other criminal case in the real world. The housekeeper, Connie, had ratted on her employer and fled for her own safety.

It was logical but dead wrong. There never had been any Connie. There had been only Abby, whose DMV records, as Wyatt recalled, listed her middle name as Constance.

She had obtained work as Earth's housekeeper, probably a day or two after talking with Wyatt. Twice a week she had shown up, dusting and vacuuming, perhaps searching a different corner of Earth's house each time, until finally she had found the stolen items.

The 911 call had followed. And Connie Hammond, who had never existed, had disappeared.

Abby hadn't merely studied Earth from a distance.

She'd made herself part of his life. And now she was doing the same thing with Raymond Hickle, a guy who had a penchant for becoming obsessed with beautiful women, a guy who might have tried to splash acid in Jill Dahlbeck's face.

Wyatt wondered how often Abby had tried her skill at this kind of contest. It was amazing she was still alive. She must be damn good or damn lucky. Maybe both. Eut everyone made mistakes, and nobody's luck held forever.

Wyatt let out a slow breath. So what was he going to do about her? He didn't know. Maybe the best option was to walk away, leave her alone.

She had told him she didn't want his help. I can take care of myself, she'd said.

Eut suppose she got in over her head. Would she admit it? Or would she plow onward, too stubborn and proud to back down?

He was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Abby woke in a bed that was not her own. She came alert instantly and knew where she was-Travis's bedroom. And she knew it was late, well past noon, and that Travis had let her sleep when he left for work.

She looked at the clock on the nightstand. The time was 3:47. She'd slept nearly all day. She ought to have felt guilty about it, but she knew she had needed the downtime. A body could run on adrenaline for only so long.

Hunger had awakened her. It urged her out of bed now. She went into the kitchen and raided Travis's fridge, finding a gourmet frozen pasta meal, which she microwaved and then ate out of the container while standing up. According to the package, the meal was only two hundred calories-not enough, but it would hold her.

When she was through, she returned to the bedroom, where she retrieved the spare house key Travis had left on the bureau. Then she took a long look at the TV that was really a safe. When Travis had punched in seven digits on the remote control, she'd been watching.

She knew the code.

Feeling vaguely disloyal, she picked up the remote and pressed the necessary buttons. The safe's false front swung open. She looked inside. The CDS were arranged alphabetically. She flipped through them until she found the one she wanted. When she lifted it out, the disk flashed, catching the light. The label read

She was not surprised. If Travis performed background checks on his clients' friends and business partners, it made sense for him to take similar precautions with his own associates.

Of course, she was more than an associate, wasn't she? She had been Travis's lover for four years, his protegee, his confidante. Yet her life, or as much of it as could be gleaned from databases, had been stored on this electromagnetic disk and filed away for safekeeping here in the same bedroom where Travis had made love to her, not only today but many times.

Perhaps she should have been outraged. But she knew how this business worked. No one could be trusted fully. Everyone had to be checked out.

"Even the. people you're sleeping with?" she wondered aloud, but she knew the answer to that.

Especially the people you're sleeping with.

Those were the rules of the game. She had to accept them.

She replaced the CD and shut the safe, then left the house, wishing she could be naive enough to be angry.

Anger would have felt good right now.

The house in Culver City was located on an unappealing side street off Sawtelle Boulevard. Decrepit garden apartments were interspersed with bungalows in the old craftsman style, houses that once had been comfortable starter homes for young families. Back then, the lawns had been neatly tended, the paint touched up every year. Now cars stood on cement blocks in weedy driveways, and graffiti decorated the brick walls that had been raised as ineffectual barriers to crime. Barred windows were everywhere. Although it was late afternoon, no children played in the street, and no one walked here. The only visible life was a stray dog nosing through the litter that lined the curb.

"Looks like the people at Trendline made one hell of an investment,"