MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

He'd reached out to her in his clumsy way. She wanted to explore the new path he'd opened for her.

"I'm kind of tired." He put his hand on the doorknob.

She tried stalling.

"There's some leftovers for you to take."

"You keep them. It'll make a good lunch." He fumbled the door open and stepped into the hall.

"Raymond, if you ever want to talk to me… about anything… drop by, okay?"

He didn't look back.

"I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks."

Then the door was shut and she was alone. Abby wished he hadn't fled.

There had been a chance for a dialogue, a breakthrough. It was an opportunity that might not present itself again.

Hickle stood unmoving in the hallway for a long time, thinking of one thing only.

He had kissed her. Kissed her mouth.

He hadn't meant to. Nor had he meant to ask most of the questions he'd asked. He'd simply been unable to stop himself. It was as if he'd been carried along on a current of energy that flowed between Abby and himself, with no willpower of his own, no self-control.

He let himself into his apartment, then paced the living room. After a while it occurred to him that he was hungry. He'd managed to eat only a few bites with Abby so near to him on the couch. In the kitchen he fried up some beans and ate them out of a bowl, washing them down with Coca-Cola. Eating calmed him.

He had made a fool of himself, but she hadn't seemed to mind. She had smiled kindly and offered to be there if he needed to talk. She had said she was his friend. He wished he could believe her. But the words from last night's e-mail message still scrolled through his memory: Her job is to get close to men like yourself, learn their secrets, and report what she finds.

He finished his meal, wandered into the bedroom, and sat on his bed, shoulders slumping. He still didn't know if Abby was his friend or his betrayer. But he could find out. It was easy now, as easy as the press of a button.

Hickle reached into his pants pocket and took out the item he had snatched from Abby's purse.

There had been other things in the purse, things he'd barely had time to notice in his brief, frantic rummaging.

A lightweight revolver-suspicious but not conclusive; in LA many women armed themselves. A wallet containing a driver's license that bore the name Abby Gallagher and an address in Riverside-it meant nothing; ID could be faked. A pair of small tools, their purpose unidentifiable.

The last item he'd found had been the one he wanted. He had slipped it into his pocket and backed away from the coffee table just before she emerged from the kitchen with the wet towels. He held it now in the palm of his hand.

A microcassette recorder with a tape inside, partially used. He touched Rewind, and the tape began to run back.

If she was keeping secrets, he would find them on the tape. Her ruminations and reminders, her notes to herself. All he had to do was listen.

The tape kept rewinding. It made a low hiss as it turned.

He wondered if he wanted to play it. Maybe he would be better off not knowing. If he could accept Abby as what she claimed to be, if he could put away all doubt and suspicion, wouldn't he be happier?

He weighed the tape recorder in his hand, as if weighing the choice it represented. Then his finger pressed the button marked Play.

From the small speaker came Abby's voice, faint as a whisper. Hickle stretched out on the bed, the tape recorder inches from his ear, and listened.

"Where is this going to lead?"

V V Howard Barwood paused in the act of pulling on his pants. He looked at Amanda, naked in bed.

"I told you," he said, "I intend for us to be together."

"When?"

"When Kris is out of the picture."

"I'm a cynical big-city gal, Howie. And I'm starting to wonder if that's ever going to happen."

"It'll happen." He tugged his pants up around his waist and fastened the buckle. He hated it when she called him Howie.

The bedside lamp was the only light in the room. It was fitted with a three-way reading bulb, but the two higher wattages had burned out, and only the lowest setting was still functional. The bulb cast a wan, sallow glow over half the bedroom, leaving the far corners in shadow.

"You know," Amanda went on as if he hadn't spoken, "I'm starting to sense a certain proclivity toward procrastination on your part. You've had months to tell her."

"There are other considerations."

"Such as?"

"The timing of certain financial transactions." It seemed safe to tell her that much.

"Sounds very mysterious," Amanda purred, "and disturbingly nonspecific."

"Let's just say we're not going to be poor."

"Was that ever an issue?"

"Poor is a relative term. Poor by my standards might be rich by somebody else's. We'll have all we need."

"And what will Kris have?"

Howard turned away.

"You don't have to worry about Kris."

He found his shirt and shrugged it on. He felt better when he was not bare-chested. As a younger man he had been proud of his muscular torso, but now his pecs were sagging and his abdomen had loosened as his waistline expanded. He was out of shape. He didn't like to look in the mirror anymore. Or maybe there were other reasons why he preferred not to look at himself.

Outside, the siren of an emergency vehicle-police car, ambulance, fire engine-caterwauled down some nearby street. Sirens were a constant background noise in this neighborhood. Howard thought of the crash of the surf on the Malibu sand, the only noise he ever heard from the deck of the beach house, and briefly he wondered what he was doing in this place.

Well, it was a little late to be asking that question, wasn't it?

Already he had set in motion a chain of events that would free him from his marital obligations and his life in Malibu. At times he might regret the course he'd taken, but he could not undo what he had done.

There was no turning back.

"What?" Amanda asked.

He realized he had spoken the last thought aloud.

"Nothing," he said, buttoning his shirt.

"Okay, be secretive. It's irritating, but manly in a reserved, nineteenth-century sort of way."

She rolled onto her side, showing her back to him.

Tattooed above the left cheek of her buttocks was a red rose. Howard had been fascinated the first time he'd seen it. He had been with many women, but never one with a tattoo. It had seemed exotic and arousing.

Now he regarded it with indifference and the faintest touch of condescension. He wondered if he regarded Amanda herself the same way.

No, of course not. Where had that thought come from? He was serious about Amanda. She was exactly what he needed. She was young. She had energy, ambition, confidence. She talked fast and proposed a thousand ideas an hour. And she was-what was the word?-adventurous. Sexually adventurous, not to put too fine a point on it. She did things with enthusiasm, things Kris would have been reluctant or unwilling to do at all.

He remembered his first night with Amanda-how she had teased his pants down around his knees and taken him into her mouth, drawing him out to full extension with her tongue, and in that moment he had been twenty years old again, not a man in middle age with hair on his earlobes and a potbelly that left him winded when he climbed a flight of stairs.

Not that their whole relationship was about sex. Far from it. They had conversations. Take tonight, for instance.

He had talked with her for most of the evening over an anchovy pizza and a bottle of Merlot. Only afterward had they retreated into the bedroom for a different kind of intimacy. What he was doing with Amanda was no cheap fling. It was an affair of the heart. It had to be.

Yawning elaborately, Amanda slipped out of bed and brushed past him into the bathroom. She poured a glass of water and drank a long swallow before fussing with her hair. Unlike him, she had no problem with mirrors. He liked the trim economy of her body, her small breasts with their stiff nipples, her tight thighs and the tight space between them, a space he had grown to know well over the past six months.