The Shadow Hunter

abdomen with spasms.
    “Abby, lie still, okay? You had a close call.”
    She wouldn’t listen. She gulped air and found a way to make words.
    “Phone,” she gasped. “Get me a phone…”
    The car was a Lincoln. Hickle could see it clearly as the gate lifted and the guard waved the driver through.
    Kris’s car. He was sure of it.
    The Lincoln rolled forward, moving slowly, headlights fanning across the cracked macadam. Hickle sank lower on his haunches, tensing for the moment when he would leap upright and open fire.
    Side windows first. Kris rode in the backseat. Kill her with multiple shots to the head and upper body. No need to aim, just point and shoot. He knew what shotshells could do to a human being at close range. Each disintegrating shell was like a miniature shrapnel bomb, flinging a cloud of lethal debris. Kris would be ripped apart. She would have no time to react, no chance to duck or hide, and even if she tried, there was no place for her to take cover in the Town Car’s rear compartment.
    She was sealed in a box, and killing her would be, quite literally, like shooting fish in a barrel.
    “You should’ve answered my letters, Kris,” Hickle whispered.

34
    As soon as the Town Car stopped at the Reserve’s gate, Travis shifted into hypervigilance.
    He was seated beside Kris in the backseat. Inside his jacket, strapped to his left shoulder, he carried his 9mm Walther. He unbuttoned the jacket and let his right hand rest on the lapel, ready to draw the gun if necessary.
    When the gate rose, Kris seemed to relax a little. No doubt she felt safer inside the compound. She didn’t know about the photos in Hickle’s apartment, the ones that showed her running on the beach. She didn’t know there was no safety here. Quite the opposite. This was the time and place of maximum jeopardy. If Hickle planned to strike, this was where he would do it.
    The Lincoln advanced along Gateway Road, Steve Drury driving at a cautious pace. In the rearview mirror his eyes were visible, ticking back and forth.
    Halfway down Gateway now. The intersection with Malibu Reserve Drive was two hundred yards ahead.
    “Almost home,” Kris breathed.
    He glanced at her, silhouetted in profile against the foliage on the left side of the road. It occurred to him, not for the first time,that her face had the perfect bone structure. Probably she worried about getting old, losing her looks, but what she didn’t understand was that a beauty like hers was not a matter of smooth skin and ripe complexion, but of the underlying architecture of her strong frontal bone and well-defined zygomatic arches. She would be beautiful when she was eighty, if she lived that long.
    One hundred fifty yards to the intersection. Still no trouble. Kris sighed, relaxing a little more—the amateur’s mistake. Proximity to home only increased the danger. Hickle would wait until the car had slowed to a crawl, as it would when it turned into the driveway.
    Drury had not relaxed, Travis noted. Good man, well trained. He wore a Kevlar vest under his jacket; Travis had brought it for him. He had brought no vest for himself. He’d been afraid Kris would see it and panic. Sometimes it was necessary to take certain personal risks to maintain the client’s confidence. Anyway, Travis was fatalistic about such things. He always estimated the risks of any undertaking before proceeding with it. Once committed, he put all danger out of his mind. All danger to himself, at least. The threat to Kris was a different story. Nothing could be allowed to happen to her.
    One hundred yards to Malibu Reserve Drive. The interior of the car was quiet except for the thrum of tires, the muffled vibration of the engine, and Kris’s breathing, slow and steady.
    Then a new sound, startling—a loud, insistent chirp. His cell phone. Who would be calling him at midnight?
    He whipped out the phone and held it to his ear, his gaze fixed on the dark roadside. “Travis,” he barked.
    “Sir, it’s Hastings.” One of the TPS computer jocks tracking down Trendline Investments and its possible connection to Western Regional Resources. “You told us to call if we found anything definitive.”
    “Did you?”
    “Yes, sir. I’d say we did.”
    “Give it to me fast,” Travis ordered, still watching the darkness. “I don’t have much time.”
    Abby had propped herself to a sitting position on the fire escape when Wyatt returned, climbing through the bedroom window with her purse in