The Shadow Hunter

wrong, after all. Maybe Abby wasn’t mixed up in anything as reckless and crazy as he’d feared. He hoped so.
    He was circling the far end of the lot when he glimpsed a flash of motion in his rearview mirror. Another vehicle had entered the parking area—a white subcompact.
    Wyatt parked in the nearest available space, safely hidden in a carport’s shadow. Low in his seat, he watched the car cruise past. It was a Dodge Colt, and it had a dent in its side panel, and the woman at the wheel was Abby, of course.
    She guided the Colt into a carport in a corner of the lot, then walked briskly to the rear door of the Gainford Arms, checking her wristwatch. In a hurry, it seemed.
    The rear door was locked. Abby had a key. She must be a resident. No surprise.
    The door swung shut behind her, and Wyatt slowly sat up in his seat. A slow anger was growing inside him. He was tempted to barge into the landlord’s office, show his badge, find out which apartment she was in. Bang on her door until she opened up, then demand to know what kind of game she was playing…
    He told himself to cool off. He wasn’t going to do that. Abby was obviously involved in something clandestine and dangerous. If he blew her cover, he would put her at risk.
    After a few moments he composed himself. Calm again, he headed over to Hollywood Station, though he was off duty foranother forty-five minutes. At an empty desk he called the phone company. It didn’t take him long to determine that only one apartment at the Gainford Arms had established phone service within the past week. Number 418, rented to Abby Gallagher.
    Hickle lived in apartment 420. Abby was his next-door neighbor.
    Wyatt was suddenly worn out. He sank back in his chair, rubbing his face. One of the day-watch patrol guys, a training officer named Mendoza, sauntered past. “Rough day, Sergeant?” Mendoza asked.
    “You could say that,” Wyatt said.
    “I bet it’s a woman.”
    Wyatt had to smile. “How’d you know?”
    “Only a woman can make a man feel that goddamn bad.”

16
    At five fifteen Abby found Hickle in the laundry room of the Gainford Arms, unloading his clothes from the dryer. “Hi, neighbor,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
    Hickle flushed. “It’s a small world,” he managed.
    She rewarded his effort at humor with a smile. Actually their meeting was no coincidence. After returning from TPS, she had rewound her surveillance videotape of Hickle’s apartment and scanned it in fast motion. The tape was timestamped, allowing her to determine that at exactly 4:27 he had left the apartment carrying a basket of laundry. Hastily she had stuffed some of her clothes into a plastic bag and headed down to the basement. She thought it would seem more natural to run into him there than to arrange another chance encounter in the hallway.
    “How much do these machines cost?” she asked as she dumped the contents of her sack into one of the big washers.
    “Seventy-five cents each.”
    “I’d better stock up on quarters. My wardrobe’s pretty limited, and I have to keep washing the same items if I want anything clean to wear.”
    He didn’t answer. He was collecting the rest of his clothes from the dryer, in an obvious hurry to depart. She knew he was nervous around her—around women in general. Still, she wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. They had a date to go on, whether he knew it or not.
    “I didn’t spend a lot of time packing,” she continued, as if his silence was the most natural thing in the world. “Lit out of town in a rush. Left most of my things behind.”
    This ought to tweak his curiosity, and it did. He looked up from the dryer. “Sounds like the move was kind of sudden.”
    “Extremely sudden. I threw some bare necessities into four suitcases, tossed ’em in the back of my car, and amscrayed.”
    “You’re not on the run from the law, are you?”
    He said it quite seriously, but she was sure he meant it as a joke, so she merely laughed. “On the run from my problems, I guess.”
    “You have…problems?”
    “Doesn’t everybody?”
    “Sometimes I think I’m the only one.”
    “You’re not. It only feels that way. Not a good feeling, is it?”
    He looked away and mumbled, “No, it’s not.” He seemed embarrassed, as if he had revealed too much. He picked up the laundry basket and took a step toward the door. “Well…see you.”
    “Hey, you happen to know any place where a person can get a decent meal