The Shadow Hunter

set. From a distance its magic was intact. At this moment she wanted only to return to her fake desk under the lights and continue reading off the TelePrompTer and smiling into the cameras. She felt safe there, enclosed in a protective circle, doing what she did best. But the show was over, and all she could do was go away into the dark and hope Travis and his people kept her safe.
    “Okay.” She felt Travis deserved a smile for his kindness, but she couldn’t summon one. “Let me scrub this makeup off. I’ll meet you in my office. You know where it is.”
    “Kris—I’m sorry about this. We could be wrong in our assessment, but we can’t take the risk.”
    She said she understood. And she did. The rational part of her understood perfectly well, but there was another part of her, less sober and composed, that wanted to scream that it was unfair and she was tired and why couldn’t Hickle leave her alone and harass somebody else?
    In the dressing room she bent over the sink, removing her makeup with a towel. When she was done, she studied herself in the mirror. The face she saw was beautiful and haughty and scared. It was not her face. Her face never showed fear, and this one did.
    Hickle had stolen everything from her now. Her peace of mind, her daily routine, her comfort, perhaps her marriage. Even the face in the mirror wasn’t her own anymore.
    There was nothing left for him to take—except her life.
    Howard parked in the garage of the beach house at 11:15, later than he’d expected, because before leaving the bungalow he had decided to smooth things over with Amanda, a process that had taken some time and further disarranged the bedsheets.
    But things had worked out all right. He had beaten Kris home by at least a half hour.
    He walked around to the guest cottage, where he was met by the two TPS staff officers on duty. Their names were Pfeiffer and Mahoney, though he never could recall which was which. The men seemed unusually alert tonight. Even as they greeted him, they were scanning the darkness on the far side of Malibu Reserve Drive. “Anything wrong?” Howard asked.
    They assured him the situation was normal. He didn’t find their protestations entirely convincing. Something was up. His suspicion was confirmed when one of them mentioned that Kris would be arriving in a TPS staff car tonight.
    “A staff car? Why?”
    “Routine precaution,” Pfeiffer or Mahoney said.
    “If it’s routine, why haven’t you done it before now?”
    “It’s just standard procedure,” his partner, who was either Mahoney or Pfeiffer, replied. Both men kept their gazes fixed on the shadowy foliage across the road.
    His answer was no answer at all. It was, in fact, just another way of saying the same thing. Howard thought of pointing this out but decided against it. Kris was Travis’s client. The TPS people would tell her whatever she demanded to know. They rarely extended the same courtesy to him.
    He said good night to Pfeiffer and Mahoney, then proceeded down the garden path to the house. Courtney opened the door for him as he climbed the steps. She must have heard the TPS agents buzz him in. “’Evening, Mr. Barwood.”
    He acknowledged the housekeeper with a nod, noticing how she backed away when he stepped into the foyer. Courtney had been keeping her distance from him since the day, several monthsago, when he’d reached out in the game room to stroke the dark sheet of her hair. It had been an impulse on his part, stupid and thoughtless. She had recoiled and started to cry, and he’d felt bad, but not so bad that he hadn’t resorted to threats to ensure that she kept quiet about the incident, particularly where Mrs. Barwood was concerned.
    Now he wondered if she had kept quiet after all. Maybe she had said something to Kris. Maybe that was why Kris now suspected his affair.
    Courtney shut the door. “How was your ride?” she asked.
    “Terrific. I went all the way to Santa Barbara. That car hypnotizes me.”
    He said it as jauntily as he could, but she merely murmured, “Sounds like fun.”
    She didn’t believe him. She knew he hadn’t been out cruising the coast road. She could guess what he’d been up to. And so could Kris. It was obvious now. Perhaps, to a more perceptive man, it would have been obvious all along.
    “I think I’ll unwind out on the deck,” Howard said. “It’s a beautiful night.”
    “Sure is.” She seemed relieved to be rid of him.
    He walked to the rear of the