The Shadow Hunter

around here?”
    Nonplussed by the change of topic, Hickle only blinked.
    “I survived last night on crackers and cheese. Since you work in a restaurant, you must know the local dining scene. What I’m looking for is a tasty low-fat meal, something that won’t drive up my cholesterol count to the stratosphere.”
    She waited, hoping he wouldn’t panic so badly that his mind would go blank. She needed him to make a dining suggestion. Finally he came up with something.
    “How about The Sand Which Is There?” he said. Abby asked him to repeat the name. He obeyed, speaking slowly to emphasize the pun. “It’s in Venice, on the boardwalk.”
    “Great. Maybe we could go together, say, around quarter to six. I mean, who wants to eat alone?”
    This possibility took him so completely by surprise that for several seconds he couldn’t answer at all. She knew he was trying to find an escape hatch, a socially acceptable way to turn her down, because the prospect of spending the evening with a woman, any woman, would be terrifying to him.
    Yet he did want someone to talk to. She could sense it. He had opened up a little already. She was giving him the chance to go further, if only he would take it. She waited.
    “Well,” he said at last, “okay. I mean, why not?”
    She relaxed. “Great. I’ll knock on your door at, say, ten to six.”
    “Sure. Ten to six. No problem…”
    He was already retreating, the laundry basket in his arms. He escaped out the door, and she heard his footsteps on the stairs to the lobby.
    So far, so good. Abby smiled.
    Having started the wash cycle, she might as well finish the job. She hadn’t lied when she told Hickle she had only a few clothes with her. She had brought a total of four suitcases, and the two largest ones had been crammed with electronic gear and other tools of her trade.
    The washing machine rattled and hummed, sloshing its contents against the porthole in the door. She sat and watched her clothes as they were tossed around in a bath of suds. The shifting patterns reminded her of the colored glass fragments in a kaleidoscope. She’d had a kaleidoscope when she was a little girl; her father had given it to her. She remembered playing with it for hours, fascinated by the ever-changing patterns. Now she was an adult, but she still studied patterns—patterns of behavior, of body language, of verbal expression. Some patterns were obvious, like the selection of books in Hickle’s bedroom, and some were moresubtle, like the way he had asked if she was an actress when they met. Jill Dahlbeck had been an actress…
    Wait.
    She froze, suddenly aware of another presence in her environment.
    Turning her head, she scanned the rows of washers and dryers, the windowless brick walls, the bare ceiling bulbs suspended from the low ceiling. She saw nobody. Even so, she was almost sure she was not alone.
    She unclasped her purse and reached inside for her snub-nosed Smith, but hesitated. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let one of the other residents spot her with a concealed firearm.
    She left the gun in her open purse, within close reach of her right hand.
    “Hello?” she called out.
    Her voice rose over the rumble of the washer. No one answered.
    Slowly she stood, then turned in a circle, studying every corner of the room. The place was empty.
    If someone had been watching her, he had retreated from the laundry room. Perhaps he had gone upstairs—or perhaps he was hiding in the boiler room next door.
    But who? Was it Hickle? Or her assailant from last night? Or merely the product of an oversensitized imagination?
    She decided to find out.
    Cautiously she approached the doorway. On the threshold she placed her hand inside her purse, wrapping her index finger around the Smith’s trigger.
    The stairway to the lobby was on her right. The boiler room lay to her left. The door was open, the overhead light off. Three large water heaters hissed inside.
    She groped for a light switch inside the doorway. Couldn’t find one. She entered in darkness. There was a flashlight in her purse but she couldn’t take it out without releasing her grip on the gun, and right now the gun was more important to her.
    The boiler room was large and musty. Concrete floor, brick walls, cobwebs in the corners. A man could crouch in one of those corners and not be seen.
    “Hello?” she said again. “Anyone here?”
    Nothing.
    She advanced into the middle of the room. The water heaters were straight ahead. Big