The Shadow Hunter

have heard the shots, as had Kris’s neighbors.
    So the police were definitely involved. Whatever the outcome of the attack, there would be a thorough investigation. The Hollywood side of the case would focus on Hickle’s apartment. Nice men in suits would be banging on every door on the fourth floor very soon. But by then she would be gone.
    She made her way somewhat unsteadily into the kitchen and took out a pair of rubber gloves. As she was pulling them on, she heard Wyatt’s low-top boots on the linoleum floor. “I’m not sure I want to know what those are for,” he said wryly.
    She saw a frown of disapproval pinching his mouth. “Then you’d better not follow me when I go into Hickle’s apartment.”
    “His apartment?” The frown deepened, and he folded his arms across his chest, the blue sleeves of his jacket straining taut. “Sounds like tampering with a crime scene.”
    “Going to arrest me, Sergeant?” His silence was an eloquent reply. “Okay, then.”
    Taking her cell phone in case Travis called back, she hustled into the bedroom, where she picked up the padlock and chain.Then she climbed onto the fire escape and lifted herself into Hickle’s bedroom window.
    “You took a blow to the back of the head,” Wyatt said from behind her.
    His voice surprised her. He had followed her so silently that she hadn’t been aware of his presence. She paused, straddling the windowsill. “Yeah, Hickle clipped me,” she admitted, self-consciously fingering the bump he had seen. There was no laceration, no bleeding, only a large, swollen knob, tender to the touch.
    Wyatt leaned close and patted the injury also, drawing a wince from. her. “How?” he asked, worry in his eyes. “What did he use, his fist or a weapon?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve got a little memory gap. I remember fighting him…then coming to.”
    “You lost consciousness from the blow? Hell, Abby, you’ve suffered a grade three concussion. We have to get you to an ER. You need a neurologic exam—”
    “I need to take care of business. The ER can wait.”
    She tried to complete her unlawful entry into Hickle’s apartment. Wyatt grabbed her hand to stop her. “You have any idea how serious a major concussion can be?”
    She raised her head and met his eyes, experiencing another swoon of vertigo. “I think I do. Let’s see, when my brain sloshed forward, I could have suffered a contre-coup injury—contusion of the frontal and temporal lobes. Or I could have ruptured some blood vessels, in which case I have a nice little subdural hematoma building up pressure in my skull. Maybe I’ve formed a blood clot, and if I receive another blow it’ll be jarred loose and I’ll have a stroke, possibly fatal. So yes, Vic, I have a vague idea of how serious a concussion can be, and the sooner you let me do what I have to do, the sooner I can get medical attention. Okay?”
    She shook free of his grip and finished climbing through the window. She knew she had been sharp with him. Irritability was one symptom of head trauma.
    The air in Hickle’s apartment was clean. He hadn’t set a similar death trap in his own place. “Don’t touch anything,” she instructed Wyatt when he followed her inside. “You were never here.”
    She wiped off the padlock and chain, tossing both items on the bedroom floor, and proceeded into the living room. The first thing she saw was that Hickle had pulled down the smoke detector. Scanning the carpet, she discovered the camera’s crushed remnants. She put them in her pocket.
    “What was that?” Wyatt asked.
    “Surveillance camera. In pieces, but the crime scene guys would still be able to identify it.”
    “Camera? One of yours?”
    “It’s just a tool of the trade, no big deal, except it’s illegal.”
    “Yeah, except for that.”
    Abby retrieved the infinity transmitter from the smashed telephone, then found the bug in the oven’s ventilation hood, which Hickle had overlooked. She returned to the bedroom. The place was a mess. Hickle had torn down most of the photos; they littered the floor like a drift of faces. Abby wondered if Wyatt noticed that the subject of every photograph was Kris Barwood. If so, he didn’t mention it.
    As she was groping underneath the drawers of Hickle’s nightstand to recover the other microphone, she heard Wyatt say, “You think you can disappear, is that it?”
    “Possibly. I’ve done it before.”
    “You mean when you were Emanuel Barth’s