The Shadow Hunter

the return address, had been sent by a ZoomMail client who called himself JackBNimble. It was right out of the nursery rhyme:
    Jack, be nimble
Jack, be quick
Jack, jump over the candlestick
    Whoever had made contact with him was someone who enjoyed playing games.
    The e-mail message, though brief, had been dense with detailed information on the security measures that protected Kris. Hickle had read it slowly, pausing often to draw a breath. He’d learned that Kris employed a security firm called Travis Protective Services, that a bodyguard accompanied her at all times, that the bodyguard carried a 9mm Beretta and served as her chauffeur, that additional agents were posted in the guest cottage on the property. There had been more, a wealth of facts.
    If they were facts. They might have been lies designed to ensnare him in some subtle way. He couldn’t be sure. He could trust no one, not even his anonymous benefactor.
    But if the message was what it appeared to be, then Jack was someone with inside knowledge of the TPS operation. A TPS employee, perhaps, or a member of the Barwood household. This person knew a great deal about Hickle—his address, his Volkswagen’s plate number—and wanted Hickle to know a great deal about Kris.
The last lines of the message had been the most intriguing:

The Malibu Reserve compound is securely gated and fenced, but a drainage pipe affords access to the property on the northwest side, sixty feet from Pacific Coast Highway.

Access to the property. [email protected] had wanted him to know this.
Hickle had replied to the message, typing one word:

Why?
    He’d reread Jack’s note until it was committed to memory, then deleted it from his mailbox as the sender had instructed.
    Hickle hadn’t slept well that night. For the next few days he’d checked his e-mail account every afternoon. A week had passedbefore he received the next message. More security details, capped by a provocative closing observation:
Kris is most vulnerable when she returns from work in her Lincoln Town Car shortly after midnight. An assailant could lie in wait in the darkness and not be seen. Think about it.
    There had been no answer to Hickle’s question. Jack’s motive, it appeared, was not for him to know.
    Hickle had spent his next Sunday afternoon in the brush near the Malibu Reserve, tracking down the drainage pipe. It was narrow, but he could wriggle through. Once inside, he was within sight of the Barwoods’ house. Several times he had returned, snapping Polaroids of Kris as she jogged on the beach in the company of her bodyguard. He had watched the guest cottage long enough to see men enter and leave. Agents were indeed stationed there. Everything Jack had told him had checked out.
    There had been two more recent messages, different from the earlier ones. Jack was growing impatient. He goaded Hickle. The last message had been a childish taunt:
Kris laughs about you. She thinks you’re a joke. She’s told the TPS agents that you’re no threat because you don’t have the guts to take action.
    Crude manipulation. Hickle hadn’t fallen for it. He had come to distrust Jack. Something was going on here, something complicated and mysterious. Maybe TPS was sending the messages to prod him into committing some foolhardy arrestable offense. After the last e-mail from Jack, he had sent a one-sentence reply:
You can’t make me your bitch.
    He had not checked his Internet mailbox this week. He had expected never to hear from Jack again. Instead, for the first time Jack had made contact by telephone.
    The call worried him, because he didn’t know what had prompted it or what it might mean.
    At this hour the library would be closed. To check his e-mail, he would have to use an all-night copy store on Western Avenue. The store was a block ahead.
    Could Jack have anticipated that he would go to this store? Might he be waiting there, ready to spring some deadly trap?
    “Seems doubtful,” Hickle murmured, but as he eased into the right lane, he reached across to the duffel bag on the passenger seat and unzipped it, affording instant access to the shotgun.
    If anybody opened fire, he would be ready. He would not go down without a fight.
    Nobody shot at him. He guided the Volkswagen into a shadowy corner of the parking lot, where he could observe the store without being seen from inside. A neon sign blazed above a glass storefront framing rows of self-service photocopy machines and computers. A few