MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

"I should hire her for TPS. She'd make a good bodyguard.

As for Howard, you don't have to worry about him. Men of his social standing seldom run. They stick around and hire smart lawyers. They always think they can beat the system. Half the time they're right."

"I guess so."

"But I'll keep the bungalow in mind. If he flees, I'll tell the police." He touched her hand lightly, then pulled away.

"Better get going before Nurse Patched returns. Besides, there's another stop I have to make on this floor. Kris is here."

"Kris? Right down the hall?"

He nodded.

"She showed symptoms of neurogenic shock. The paramedics brought her in."

"Saint John's would have been closer, or UCLA Medical."

"Her regular physician is on call at Cedars, so this is where she wanted to come. And you don't say no to Kris Barwood, especially now.

If you thought she was big before, you should see the coverage of this case."

She understood what he was thinking.

"Then maybe TPS will make a comeback?"

"Here's hoping."

"And maybe… maybe I can let it go." She said the words softly, half to herself.

"Corbal?" Travis asked.

She nodded.

"I know I told you I wasn't trying to prove anything or redeem myself.

I lied. It's all I've thought about for the past four months. The way I screwed up… and what I could do to try to make it right."

"You did everything you could," Travis said gently, "and then some.

Now get some sleep. You've earned a good long rest."

"I will. Thanks, Paul."

She let her head fall back on the pillow, drowsiness washing over her.

She was closing her eyes when Travis leaned down and kissed her forehead, a tender act, unusual for him.

"A good long rest," he repeated softly.

She was asleep before he left the room.

Their names were Giacomo and Heller, and they greeted Howard Barwood at the sheriff's station with smiles and handshakes, saying how much they appreciated his taking the time to clear up a few minor details about the case. He scarcely listened. He'd slept little, having spent most of the night at Cedars-Sinai with Kris. He was tired and hungry;

Courtney had fixed him breakfast, but he'd had little appetite. Above all, he was burdened with guilt.

He regretted his every hour with Amanda. He regretted every thought of leaving Kris. He regretted being a bad husband. What made it worse was that he knew this was only a mood that would pass, and before long he would be sneaking out for more liaisons with Amanda or some new young thing. His good intentions never lasted.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, he let Giacomo and Heller usher him into a small office, where they offered him a seat at a battered wooden table. They sat opposite him. Heller took out a notepad and a pen.

Giacomo placed a cassette recorder on the table and said something about a need to record the interview to ensure an accurate transcript.

"Fine," Howard said indifferently.

Giacomo did most of the talking. He began by speaking into the recorder, giving the location, date, and time of the interview. Howard noticed he used military time-oh-nine-hundred thirty-five hours.

"We're here with Mr. Howard Barwood," Giacomo said, asking for Howard's birth date. Howard rattled it off without thinking, his voice alien to him, coming from far away.

"Now, Mr. Barwood, I'm going to give you your constitutional rights.

It would be good if you would listen carefully-" For the first time Howard roused himself.

"My rights?"

Giacomo said yes, and Heller nodded, both men smiling in a way that seemed too friendly.

Howard blinked.

"Am I a suspect or something?"

The idea seemed bizarre, incomprehensible.

"Actually, Mr. Barwood, we're mainly interested in eliminating you as a suspect."

"But… a suspect in what? Hickle attacked Kris.

People saw him. I was in the house-"

"Of course you were. There are witnesses who support everything you just said. And nobody doubts that Raymond Hickle ambushed that car."

"Then what…?" He couldn't finish the question.

Nothing was making sense.

"There are always a lot of angles in a case like this," Giacomo said.

"We need to tie up some loose ends, that's all."

Angles, loose ends… Howard was baffled.

"You never said anything about viewing me as a suspect."

Heller spoke.

"We don't view you that way. Truth is, we hate to even waste your time with this. What we'd like is to get it over with so we can all go home."

"It's been a long night for everybody," Giacomo said.

"I'm beat," Heller added.

Vaguely Howard understood that something was taking place that was not necessarily to his benefit. But the two detectives were right about one thing. It had indeed been a long night. He was reluctant to walk out of the interview now, only to return later and go through all this rigmarole again. And if he did walk out, he'd have to contact Martin Greenfeld, his attorney.

Martin would never let him talk to any detectives or waive any rights.

Martin believed in handling every situation as if it were an adversarial contest played for the highest stakes.

Howard imagined the consequences of refusing to talk. The story would leak to the media. People would suspect him of complicity in the attempted murder of his wife. And if his relationship with Amanda came out… On the other hand, if he simply kept Martin and all other lawyers out of it and did as the detectives asked, he could be done with this interview in thirty minutes.

No suspicions, no rumors, no damaging publicity, no journalists digging up dirt.

"Fine," he said evenly.

"Let's proceed." Giacomo recited Howard's rights. Howard said he understood them. Yes, he wished to give up his right to remain silent.

Yes, he gave up his right to have an attorney present. Yes, yes, yes.

Then there were questions about his activities last night. He told his story about taking the Lexus for a long drive up the coast. The detectives didn't interrupt or challenge him. He began to think this really was a routine interview. By the time he narrated the climax of the story-the moment when, standing on his beachfront deck, he'd heard gunshots-he was relaxed and confident. He didn't need Martin to hold his hand.

He could take care of himself.

"So that's the way it happened," he finished.

"Great, Mr. Barwood." Giacomo spoke in the tone of a man adjourning a meeting.

"I guess you drove that Lexus of yours here today, didn't you?"

"I drive it everywhere. I love that car."

"Maybe when we're done here, Kevin and I could take a look at the odometer."

This froze Howard.

"The odometer?"

"Just to note the number for our records. If you've been driving up to Santa Barbara on a regular basis, you must have logged some serious miles."

"Well… I may have exaggerated the number of trips I took. And it's a new car, quite new. There aren't a lot of miles on it yet." He was starting to babble. He shut up.

Heller wrote something in his pad.

"Okay, well, we'll talk about that later," Giacomo said blandly.

"Now I wonder if you could tell us anything about this company of yours.

Western Regional Resources."

Western Regional. How the hell could they know about that? How was it possible? Why would it even come up?

"I don't think my business holdings are relevant," he said stiffly, playing for time.

"Oh, you're probably right, Mr. Barwood." Giacomo would not stop smiling.

"It's another of those loose ends we told you about. You do own a company called Western Regional Resources, don't you? Or are we wrong about that?"

By all logic Howard knew he should stop the interview and get Martin Greenfeld on the phone, but stubbornly he still believed he could talk his way out. He was a good talker. He had developed parcel after parcel of prime Westside real estate on the strength of his facility with words, his charm, his self-possession. He called on those faculties to rescue him now.