MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

The police allowed her to leave by 8 a.m. She had not seen her condo in daylight for a week. She slept until two in the afternoon, then fixed a meal. At three the guards in the lobby said two men from the LAPD were here to see her.

This time she gave the detectives the full story, staying close to the truth but not too close. Fatigue made lying easy; it was as if her body was too worn out to register any of the usual discomfort that a lie detector or a trained observer could catch.

"Travis hired me to move in next door to Hickle. I was there to track his movements, make note of when he came and went. We wanted to get a feel for his daily routine. That was what I was told, anyway. But in fact, I was being set up. Travis told Hickle I was spying on him, and it drove Hickle over the edge. He tried to kill Kris. After he failed, Travis gave him my home address in Westwood. I guess you know what happened after that." They asked what had led her inside the office building.

She said she had begun to suspect Travis. Suspecting an ambush, she'd checked out her neighborhood and found evidence of illegal entry to the office tower.

She'd thought Hickle might be inside.

"That's when you should have called the police," the older of the two detectives said in an almost fatherly tone.

"I wasn't sure Travis was guilty. I wanted proof. I wanted it on tape."

The younger detective, less sympathetic, pointed out that her words on tape and the condition of Howard Barwood's gun, recovered from Travis's body, served as evidence that she had broken into Barwood's Culver City bungalow and tampered with his property.

Abby admitted to this.

"If Mr. Barwood wants to press charges against me, he's entitled." She allowed herself a sweet smile, aimed mainly at the older cop.

"Think he will?"

"Considering that you've cleared him on multiple felony counts, ma'am, I think he'll give you the damn gun if you ask for it, and the bungalow too."

The younger detective wouldn't give up.

"On the tape Travis seems to hold you responsible for the death of Devin Corbal. What have you got to say about that?"

"Travis hired me to follow Sheila Rogers, Corbal's stalker, and report her movements. That particular, night, I lost her. I didn't know where she had gone, and so I wasn't able to give Travis's men a heads-up when she entered Lizard Maiden, the club where Corbal was hanging out. Travis never forgave me for it."

"But you weren't actually present at the scene of Corbal's death?" the younger detective asked.

"No."

"Suppose we were to round up some of the people who were in the club that night and show them your photo. What do you think they'd say?"

"Probably that the club was crowded and dark, and it's been four months since the incident, and under the circumstances their memories aren't likely to be reliable.

That's what a defense attorney would say, don't you think?"

The younger detective had no answer to that. He and his partner left shortly afterward. Before they left, Abby made them promise that her name would be kept out of the media.

They returned twice in the next two days, asking her to fill in details.

At first Abby thought they were leading her on, pretending to believe her version of events while preparing charges against her, either in the Travis shooting or in the Corbal affair. Eventually she realized that the truth was somewhat different. They didn't entirely believe her, but they had no clear idea of how badly she had misled them, and they didn't particularly care.

On Wednesday morning, they paid their last visit and informed her that they were closing the case. Her identity had not been made public.

"There was a close call," the younger cop said. By now he was friendlier.

He had grown to like her, at least a little.

"Channel Eight got hold of your name through a departmental leak. They were set to run with it, but the story got killed. I think we can guess who did you that favor."

"Probably not Amanda Gilbert."

"Amanda Gilbert is no longer with the station. But Kris Barwood's still there."

All of the following day, Abby lazed around, listening to soft music and fixing simple meals. She did a little redecorating. After some deliberation she took down her print of The Peaceable Kingdom and put it in her closet. It no longer amused her to see the lion snuggle up to the lamb.

On Friday morning she drove to Travis's house.

She parked her Miata a block away and walked to the house, lugging a light backpack. Outside the house she waited a few minutes until a Lincoln Town Car arrived, Kris at the wheel. She was driving again-no need for a bodyguard now.

"Abby," Kris said when she got out of the sedan, "I just want to say-I mean, I know everything you did for me-well, maybe not everything, but enough…"

"It's okay, Kris."

"Thank you. That's what I'm trying to say. Thank you so much."

Abby smiled.

"You may not quite understand this, but all the things I did-I didn't do them for you. I did them for me. No gratitude is required."

"You have it anyway. So why did you call me out here?"

"There's something in Paul's house you need to see.

And something I need to see, also."

Kris looked at the yellow police ribbon strung across the driveway.

"It's illegal to violate a crime scene, you know."

"So we're Thelma and Louise, breaking all the rules.

Come on."

Nobody saw them when they ducked under the ribbon and headed to the front door. Abby had brought her locksmith tools in the backpack. It was easy enough to get inside and equally easy to disable Travis's alarm system; she had watched him punch in the code on numerous occasions. She didn't bother wearing gloves; the police had already been here.

"How are things in your life?" she asked Kris as they headed down the hall to the rear of the house.

"Improving. I've filed for divorce."

"I assumed you would."

"Howard may not have tried to kill me, but he did plan to steal me blind, and he's hopelessly unfaithful.

I can do better."

"No argument here." She led Kris-into the master bedroom. The bureau drawers had been opened and emptied, the walk-in closet cleaner out, but as Abby had expected, the Scientific Investigation Division technicians had overlooked the TV set. On casual inspection it would never have been identified as a safe.

She tapped the combination into the remote control. The front of the TV swung ajar, revealing the array of compact disks. The first one that interested her was the Barwood disk. She handed it to Kris.

"Your life story is on there," she said, "and Howard's too. The assets he tried to hide from you-you'll find some leads in tracking them down.

Get a good accountant on the case."

Kris handled the disk in its plastic sleeve.

"Travis had been investigating our background?"

"Not just yours. Everybody's. Including mine."

Abby found the disk with her name on it.

"This is what I wanted to see."

The other item in her backpack was a portable computer.

She switched it on and loaded the disk labeled "SINCLAIR, ABIGAIL." "Maybe I shouldn't look at this," Kris said as Abby began navigating through the data.

"Don't be shy. We have no secrets from each other.

Travis tried to use us both. It's only fair that we see what he was up to."

The disk contained dozens of scanned articles on the Corbal case.

Travis had obsessively collected them. He seemed to feed his frustrations on every insult and innuendo directed at TPS.

The articles held little interest for Abby. She was looking for photos.

She found them in a folder marked "JPEG," a standard photo-compression format. When she opened the folder, dozens of thumbnail images appeared in a checkerboard pattern.