The Shadow Hunter

obvious she wanted to slap herself.
    When she picked up the phone, Travis was practically shouting her name. “Abby, damn it, what’s going on?”
    “I’m back. Tell me Kris Barwood’s birthday.”
    “Is this some kind of joke?”
    “Yeah, right. April fool, a week early. Just do it.”
    Another interval of silence, and then grumpily he announced, “August eighteenth, 1959.”
    She set the combination to 0818, and of course it opened.
    “Thanks, Paul. You’ve been a big help.”
    “What the hell are you—”
    “Gotta go.” She switched off the phone.
    When she parted the closet doors, she saw a Heckler & Koch Model HK770 rifle, complete with telescopic sight, standing in a corner.
    “Armed and dangerous,” she breathed. She examined the gun. A light-emitting diode was installed in the trigger guard, wired to a pressure switch in the walnut stock. A laser sighting system. That kind of modification didn’t come cheap. Neither did the gun itself. The whole package must have cost Hickle nearly a thousand dollars. Now she knew why he didn’t own a computer. He had plowed all his savings into firearms.
    A brown duffel bag lay on the closet floor. She unzipped the flap and found a Marlin Model 120 twelve-gauge shotgun and six boxes of ammunition. Two of the boxes were empty. The sportsman’s plug had been removed from the shotgun, allowing it to hold four of the three-inch Federal Super Magnum shells Hickle favored. She turned the bag upside down. The bottom was encrusted with dark earth. He must have lugged it into some wooded area with the Marlin inside and used up two boxes of shells in shooting practice.
    Most likely he’d purchased the rifle first, but he’d had trouble with his marksmanship. The scope and the laser sighting system had been an attempt to solve this problem. Later he’d realized that in the heat of battle he couldn’t depend on steady aim. He needed a gun that could simply be pointed in the direction of its target, a gun that would spray a wide scatter of shot-shell pellets to cut down anything in its path. The Marlin had replaced the HK.
    He had given the killing some thought. He had assessed his limitations, his inexperience, and had selected the weapon best suited to his needs.
    “I don’t know about anybody else in the room,” Abby said, “but I’m getting nervous.”
    She wondered if she ought to disable the guns, remove the firing pins or something. No, too risky. Hickle practiced with theshotgun and perhaps with the rifle as well. If either gun was tampered with, he would know it.
    Standing on tiptoe, she scanned the shelf built into the top of the closet, where she found a large cardboard box. She took it down. Inside was paper, a lot of paper. Newspaper and magazine articles, bundled together, many dating back years. Some were clippings; others were printouts of material Hickle must have tracked down on the Internet or on microfilm. All the stories related to Kris Barwood.
    She flipped through the articles, then paused on a copy of the birth certificate for Kristina Ingrid Andersen. Hickle had gotten hold of that too.
    At the bottom of the pile she came across a photocopy of a zoning map that showed the layout of Malibu Reserve. One house on the beach was circled in red. He must have obtained the map from the county assessor’s files, open to the public.
    There was one other item in the box, a plastic carrying case with a Polaroid camera inside. Resting beside it was a stack of color photos bound with a rubber band.
    They were Polaroids of Kris running on the beach.
    “Not good,” Abby whispered. “Not good at all.”

14
    At two o’clock Kris arranged her hair, smoothed her clothes, and asked Steve Drury to bring out the Town Car for the trip to KPTI. “We’re leaving early today.”
    She found Howard in the game room, lining up a shot on the electronic putting green. “Good run?” her husband asked without looking up.
    “I didn’t go for a jog.”
    “No?”
    “Wasn’t in the mood. You know what that’s like, don’t you? Not being in the mood?”
    This was the closest she had come to broaching the subject of their unconsummated liaison in the bedroom last night. She meant to wound him, but if she drew blood, he didn’t show it. He merely tightened his frown of concentration as he tapped the ball into the hole with an expert touch. Tinny, synthesized applause issued from a hidden speaker. The playing surface automatically recontoured itself to