The Shadow Hunter

and she collapsed, gasping. There was no air to breathe, only the swamp stench. Natural gas was an enemy of respiration. It inhibited the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. The more she inhaled, the more labored and irregular her breathing would become. Her muscles, starved of oxygen, would lose all remaining strength. Her awareness would flicker and fade out. Well, no. She doubted she would last that long. The explosion would kill her first.
    “That’s me,” she groaned. “Always looking on the bright side.”
    The longer she waited, the weaker she would get. She had to take action now, had to raise the bedroom window, draw some air into this death trap. But she couldn’t stand. All right, crawl. The window was only six feet away. A baby could crawl that far.
    She started to roll onto her belly. Something stopped her—a tug of resistance. Her left ankle had been fastened to a leg of the bureau by the chain and padlock from Hickle’s bedroom closet. And the bureau, like so much of the furniture in this dump, was bolted to the wall, impossible to lift. He’d anchored her in place so that even if she regained consciousness, she couldn’t escape.
    Nice touch, but the joke was on him. She knew the combination. Bending at the waist, she reached the padlock and lined up the numbers, then tugged on the shackle.
    The padlock didn’t open.
    But it had to. Unless…
    Hickle had changed the combination.
    Abby shut her eyes. “I take it back, Raymond. Looks like the joke’s on me.”
    The greatest danger, Hickle knew, was that the cops had read his license plate during the chase. If they had, his plate number and a description of his Volkswagen would already have been radioed to other CHP units and to LAPD and Santa Monica PD patrol cars. He could outrun one car, but not a dozen.
    He reached Ocean Avenue and turned north into heavy traffic, typical on a Friday night. Bikers and low-riders surrounded him. Rough crowd, the sort that drew a lot of cops on patrol. He scanned the sea of car roofs for a lightbar. Couldn’t see one, but that didn’t mean police units weren’t out there—maybe behind him—maybe closing in.
    Panic started his heart racing. He thought he might throw up.
    The traffic thinned a little as he entered a better neighborhood. On his left was the park on the palisades, busy with tourists and teenagers. Hotels and restaurants and condominium towers rose on his right. It occurred to him that soon, even if things went exactly as planned, he would be either dead or in custody. He would never again walk in a park or eat at a restaurant. He would not see the moon, which hovered over the ocean beyond the palisades, unless he saw it through the barred window of a cell.
    But if he lived, he would see Kris in his memory. She would be with him every day, bloodied and torn, his victim, his sacrifice. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see her. He would give up the moon for that. And if he didn’t survive…
    With death came immortality. He would be remembered. His name, his face, would be known. He, not Kris, would be on the covers of magazines. He, not Kris, would stare out at a world of television viewers from a million picture tubes. And who could say? Maybe there was a life after this one, when all destinies were fulfilled. If so, he would be with her forever, as he deserved.
    But only if he killed her first. To do that, he had to get to Malibu, and time was ticking down.
    Ahead was the incline to the coast highway. He eased into the turn lane, then got stuck behind a line of cars at a red light. A minute of waiting followed. He was helpless. If a patrol unit spotted him now, there was nothing he could do except go down shooting.
    Finally, the stoplight cycled to a green arrow. He followed the traffic downhill, breathing hard, his chest heaving with strain. There was sweat on his face, sweat pasting his shirt to his armpits and his underpants to his crotch. He smelled bad. But he’d made it at least this far.
    He pulled into the fast lane, racing between the pale cliffs and the sea. Fear of attracting attention competed with the need to make up lost time. Urgency won.
    Hickle accelerated—sixty-five miles per hour, seventy, seventy-five—breaking the speed limit as he hugged the curving shoreline of Santa Monica Bay on his way to Malibu.
    Okay, think, Abby. Think.
    Plan A had proven unsuccessful. Time to go to Plan B—if there was a Plan B, other than just lying here till the whole place went