MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

Travis picked it up with his bare hand. He had no worries about fingerprints. The gun would be thoroughly wiped before he left it for the police to find.

He was pleased to see that the serial number had not been filed off.

The gun was traceable. There was every reason to believe that Howard Barwood had bought it legally and that it could be easily linked to him.

Presumably Howard had purchased the.45 for the same reason he had installed bars on the bungalow's windows.

In a high-crime neighborhood he had wanted to feel safe.

Travis pocketed the gun after confirming it was loaded. Soon enough he would have a use for it. He would send Hickle an e-mail arranging a rendezvous in a secluded spot-perhaps one of the trails in Topanga State Park. At dawn, say, when no one was around. When Hickle arrived, Travis would sidle up next to him conspiratorially, and then-bang-one bullet to the head. He would wipe the gun and leave it in Hickle's dead hand. Easy.

But first Hickle had to take care of Abby. Well, she ought to be going home later today. She would face a one-man welcoming committee.

The police could be trusted to put it all together the right way. They would say that Hickle had killed Abby, then had shot himself in the woods. They would say that Howard Barwood, a real estate developer with ready access to property assessment records, had given Abby's home address to Hickle sometime in the previous two or three days, just as he had supplied Hickle with other inside information. They would say that Howard had even gone so far as to arm Hickle with a handgun he himself had purchased.

Howard would deny everything, but no one would believe him. It was all very tidy, no loose ends. The only person who might have been able to see through the charade was Abby. She was intuitive about these things.

She was also a few hours away from being dead.

He only wished he could have contrived a way of killing her personally.

Sadly, the idea wasn't practical.

He must content himself with arranging the hit, pulling the strings as Hickle's puppetmaster. It was not all he wanted, but it was enough.

Abby had to die. She had failed him, after all.

And failure was the only sin he recognized.

Travis left the house, locking the front door. The sun was high and bright, and he blinked at its glare, keeping his head down as he walked to his car.

There had been a time when he loved southern California's sun. Lately he preferred the dark. He wasn't sure why.

In midafternoon Abby woke for good. She knew she had recovered from the concussion. Her headache was gone, and she felt no aftereffects of her head trauma. After lunch she informed the nurse of her diagnosis.

The nurse smiled and suggested that a second opinion might be required.

"Fine," Abby said, but once the nurse had left, she dressed herself in yesterday's outfit, preparing for her departure.

There was a rap of knuckles on the open door. She turned and saw Kris Barwood in the doorway. Abby almost said hello, then hesitated, struck by the wildness in Kris's eyes.

"Kris," she said uncertainly.

"Abby." The word was less a greeting than a dulled acknowledgment.

Abby looked her over. Kris was fully dressed, evidently ready to leave.

In the hallway a TPS officer in a sport jacket and open-collared shirt stood post.

"Going home?" Abby asked.

"In a minute or two. Mind if we talk first?"

"Of course not."

Kris shut the door for privacy, leaving the TPS man outside.

"I guess you've heard," she said.

"Heard?"

"It's been all over the radio and TV-with my loyal friends at KPTI leading the charge."

"I've been asleep," Abby said gently.

"Why don't you sit down?"

Kris looked at the visitor's chair in the room and took a moment to study it, as if trying to decide what it was for. Then she sat. Abby assumed a lotus position on the unmade bed.

"It's Howard," Kris said, her voice hushed.

Abby nodded. From the look on Kris's face she had already guessed that word of Howard Barwood's probable involvement in the crime had been leaked to the media.

"What about him?"

"Well"-Kris lifted both hands, palms up-"he's disappeared."

This took Abby by surprise.

"Disappeared?"

"Yes."

"When?".

"An hour ago. He-he ran away. He ran away." She needed to repeat the words in order to make them real.

"Kris, what happened exactly?"

"What happened…"

"Tell me the who, what, where. The bare essentials.

The time line." Abby hoped an appeal to the woman's journalistic training would prod her to organize her thoughts.

The tactic worked. Kris straightened, her gaze clarifying.

"All right, here it is. Howard was with me for most of the night. This morning he left for an interview at the sheriff's office. It was supposed to be routine. I expected him to return, but he never did.

Finally I reached him at home. He was in a meeting with his lawyer, he said. He promised to call back."

"But he didn't?"

"No. Half an hour ago I called again. This time Martin Greenfeld answered. Howard's attorney. He said-well, it's just incredible what he said."

"Take it easy. Go slow." "He said detectives had arrived with a search warrant for the house.

Our house. They'd searched and found something. They seemed excited about it. Martin saw it in a clear plastic evidence bag. It looked like a phone, he said. A cell phone."

Abby knew it had to be the phone registered to Western Regional Resources, the phone Howard had used to call Hickle's apartment.

"Where did they find it?" she asked.

"Martin wasn't sure. It could have been in a closet downstairs, but why? Howard and I have three cell phones, but we don't keep any of them in a closet."

"And after this," Abby prompted, "Howard disappeared?"

Nod.

"He said he had to use the bathroom. Must have slipped out of house via the rear deck. He went to Tern and Mark's place down the road and asked if he could borrow one of their cars-they've got three.

Claimed he had to visit me here and his Lexus wouldn't start. They gave him the keys. He got out of the Reserve without being spotted.

Now he's gone, just gone.

And it's on the news, every channel. They're saying he's a suspect in the case, and he fled. Martin won't give me any details, and I'm afraid to call anybody in the news business-I can't talk openly with them.

They're my friends, but they won't hesitate to screw me if they can get a jump on the competition. I'm about to go home now, and I still don't know what's going on."

Her last statement was a plea. Abby knew she had to answer it.

"Travis told you I was here?" she asked, stalling a little.

"Yes, he mentioned it."

"But he didn't say anything else, anything about Howard?"

"Not a word."

"Well… he should have." Courage was a quality Abby prided herself on possessing, but she felt it desert her as she met Kris's earnest, beseeching gaze.

She steeled herself for honesty.

"All right, here's what I know. Hickle had an informant who ratted me out.

We don't know exactly who it was, but…"

Kris shook her head in automatic denial.

"No. Oh, no, impossible."

"There's evidence."

"What evidence?" Kris got up, paced the room.

"The phone? Is that it? The cell phone they found?"

"I think so."

"What could a phone possibly mean?"

Abby answered with a question of her own.

"Has Howard ever mentioned a company called Western Regional Resources?"

"No."

"On Thursday night Hickle got a call at his apartment, probably to arrange some kind of rendezvous. I traced the call. It was made from a cell phone registered to Western Regional Resources. Travis found evidence that the company is something Howard set up offshore-without your knowledge, apparently."