The Shadow Hunter (7 page)

We’re a lot alike, Henry Sinclair said. We get to feeling crowded more easily than most. She asked him if this was a good thing. It is, he said, if you can make it work in your favor. When she asked how, he answered. You’ll figure it out.

Had she? Sixteen years had passed since that conversation.

Her father was gone, and her mother too.

She was more alone than she had ever been as a child, and still she got to feeling crowded more easily than most.

n the evening, after a light supper, Abby went downstairs to the small gym adjacent to the lobby. She used the Stairmaster for a half hour, then left the building and walked into Westwood Village, where she browsed in a bookstore and bought a book on criminal psychopathology and a collection of old Calvin and Hobbes comics. She had never quite forgiven Bill Watterson for discontinuing that strip.

Burnout, he’d claimed. She wondered how long he would last at her job.

Mostly her visit to the Village was an excuse to do some people-watching. This was not only her job, it was her hobby. In college she had majored in Psychology because the field suited her temperament. She wanted to observe people and make assessments without being required or even permitted to get close.

Had she continued with her training, she would have been a licensed psychologist by now. But in the summer after her second year of postgraduate studies everything had changed. She had met Travis.

He was giving a lecture in Phoenix at the Arizona Biltmore. His topic: warning signs of violent psychopathology.

He was not a psychologist, but as the head of a leading security firm he had the kind of hands-on experience that trumped book learning.

She had read a profile of Travis in the Arizona Republic, which was still delivered to her father’s ranch, though her father was no longer there to read it. He had died that June, a week after she earned her master’s degree, and had been buried beside her mother in a family plot. Abby had returned to sell the ranch, a job that took longer than expected. Grief and the relentless summer sun had worn her down, and she looked for any excuse to get away. Travis’s lecture, open to the public, was the lifeline she seized.

Even without a license, she was enough of a psychologist to know what Dr. Freud would have said about the developments that followed. She had lost her father.

She was looking for another. Travis was older, an authority figure, and he came along at the right time.

Whatever her motive, she went to the lecture. Travis was charming. It was not a quality he exhibited with great frequency, but that night he roused himself to eloquence. He told intriguing stories culled from the cases he had handled, mixing humor and suspense, while never allowing his audience to forget that the stakes in his work were life and death.

Afterward she lingered with a group of attendees chatting with Travis.

As the ballroom was clearing out, she asked her only question. You evaluate your subjects on the basis of their letters or phone calls, she said.
couldn’t do therapy that way. A therapeutic diagnosis requires one-on one contact, usually over an extended series of sessions.p>

The more extended, the better—at least as far as the therapist’s bank account is concerned, Travis said with a smile, and several people laughed.

Abby pressed ahead. So even though your methods seem statistically sound, you can’t achieve the same degree of certainty in your evaluation as a working therapist, can you?

She hadn’t meant to sound combative, but Travis took the question as a challenge and proceeded to defend his approach. He spoke for a long time. When he was done, the group broke up, and Abby headed for the lobby, feeling she had failed somehow or missed an opportunity.

She was unlocking her car in the parking area near one of the city’s canals when Travis caught up with her. He came out of the darkness, striding fast, and she thought he was a mugger until the glow of a streetlamp highlighted his face.

That was a good question, he said in a quieter tone than the one he’d used in a public setting. Truth is, I didn’t have a good answer. She told him he had covered himself well. He laughed, then asked if they could have a cup of coffee together.

They lingered at a coffee bar on Camelback Road until after midnight, and when he said he was staying in town a few more days, she invited him to visit her at the ranch. It’s the real Arizona, she said. The Arizona we’re losing now.

I wonder why things always seem most real to us when we lose them, he said softly. He could not have known about her father. Still, it was the uncannily perfect thing to say.

His visit to the ranch the next day lengthened into an overnight stay.

She had not had many lovers. There had been Greg Daly and one other young man—no one else, until Travis. And no one like him, ever. He was no college student. At forty he was a man of the world. And yes, he had several of her father’s qualities.

He could be remote and aloof, even sullen. He could be hard. But where her father had always allowed at least a glimpse of his inner life, Travis kept his deepest self hidden. He was a brisk, uncomplicated man, or so he seemed. But the truth was that she could never be sure just what he was. He puzzled her. Most likely she posed the same mystery to him. Neither of them was good at opening up and revealing too much.

When he returned to LA, they stayed in touch. He flew to Phoenix several times to see her as she concluded the business of selling the ranch. Then it was September, time to pursue her doctoral degree; but strangely, her studies bored her. She had spoken with Travis at length about the advantages of direct, personal contact with the stalkers his agency observed from afar.

She had thought of a way to do it. On a trip to LA, over dinner at a seafood restaurant, she broached the subject.

It would be dangerous, Abby, Travis said.

I know.

You’d have to be trained. There’s a whole gamut of skills you’d need to acquire.

I have certain skills. Not to mention a master’s degree in psychology, a higher than average percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers, and a winning personality.

Travis smiled, unconvinced. Why would you do this?

You’re already qualified as a counselor. Earn your doctorate and your license, then open a private practice and rake in the bucks.

That’s not what I want anymore.

But why?

It lacks excitement.

There are things to be said in favor of a nice, quiet life.

You don’t live that way.

When did I ever become your role model?

She didn’t answer.

After a long time Travis said. If you want me to help you, I will.

But I won’t say I have no misgivings. I don’t want to see you hurt.

This was the gentlest thing he ever said to her, before or since.

Her training took two years. She lived in a small apartment in an unfashionable part of LA. The sale of the ranch Had given her enough money to support herself, and she took nothing from Travis. Nor did either of them ever suggest that she move in with him. She still wanted her space. She couldn’t say what Travis wanted.

He sent her to a self-defense institute specializing in the Israeli street-fighting technique of krav maga.

Most martial arts programs were glorified exercise routines blended with elements of dance; their usefulness in actual hand-to-hand struggle was limited.

Krav maga was different. There was no beauty in it. It was a brutal skill that aimed at one objective—the immediate, unconditional defeat of one’s adversary by any means available. Abby had never used violence against anyone, and the first time she had to deliver kicks and punches to her instructor’s padded torso, she did it with trembling reluctance, her vision blurred by tears. After a while she learned not to cry. Inflicting pain was a necessary evil. She could deal with it.

She could be tough. Like Travis. Like her father. She took acting lessons in Hollywood. She rode in a private detective’s surveillance van, monitoring radio frequencies.

She accepted a variety of odd jobs—waitress, cashier, clerical worker, hamburger flipper—partly for extra cash but mainly for a range of experiences to draw on when she went undercover.

Two years ago, at twenty-six, she was ready. Her first assignment had been for Travis Protective Services.

More jobs followed. She divided her duties between TPS and other security firms. Keeping her distance, as usual. She prided herself on being an independent contractor. Independent—that was the key word. Nobody owned her. Nobody controlled her. At least, she liked to think so.

When she had paid for the items in the bookstore, she stopped in a bar down the street and ordered a pina co lada her one weakness. Normally she didn’t drink alone, but her new assignment with TPS was worth a private celebration.

Midway through the drink, a young man with a fuzzy mustache that barely concealed a rash of acne sat down next to her. He ordered tequila, presenting his driver’s license to get it, then glanced at her shopping bag.

“Been buying books?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m really into Marcel Proust. You know him?”

Abby ignored the question. She showed him the gun in her purse.

“LAPD,” she whispered gravely.

He blinked at the gun, unsure whether to be scared or turned on.

“You running some kind of plainclothes operation?”

She nodded.

“We’ve heard rumors this bar is selling drinks to UCLA students with fake IDS.”

Most of the color left his face. He mumbled something and moved away, leaving his tequila behind.

Abby smiled, pleased with herself, and then a voice behind her said, “I could have you arrested.”

She turned on her barstool. A man stood a yard away, watching her. He was in his early thirties, wideshouldered and sandy haired, dressed casually in a dark sweater and cotton pants.

“For what?” she asked.

“Impersonating a police officer.”

She swiveled away from him and picked up her pina co lada

“Go easy on me. It’s my first offense.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” He took a seat next to her, resting his hands on the bar. He had blocky fingers and thick, muscular wrists.

She sipped her drink.

“Are you saying I’m a criminal?”

“I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions. It might have been an innocent mistake. But I don’t think so.”

“Why’s that?”

“You don’t look innocent. But don’t be offended. Innocence is boring.”

“Well, at least I’m not boring. I would hate to think I was wasting your time.”

“You never do, Abby. You never do.”

He ordered a draft beer. For a minute they were quiet as he worked on the beer and she finished her drink.

“So,” she said, “how’s it going. Vie?”

“Could be worse. You?”

“Can’t complain. Streets getting any safer?”

“So we’re told. Couldn’t prove it by me.”

Abby had known Vie Wyatt for roughly a year, ever since the Jonathan Bronshard case. Bronshard was a stockbroker who had put up a website with pictures of his family and a description of their happy home, only to become the target of threatening phone calls. He went to Paul Travis. Ordinarily Travis limited his services to celebrity clients, but he made an exception for Bronshard, whose office was down the hall from the TPS suite.

The calls were traced to a pay phone in Hollywood, which TPS officers staked out until the next call was made. They followed the caller home and identified him as Emanuel Barth, a man who’d spent some time in prison for vandalism, breaking and entering, and related offenses.

Abby interviewed the patrol sergeant who had supervised the arrest that put Barth away.

The sergeant was Vie Wyatt of Hollywood Division.

Mr. Barth, she learned, had a hang-up about upper middle-class families. Friendless, unmarried, chronically unemployed, he took out his frustrations by blaming those who had more than he did. In 1998 he’d broken into an upscale house in Toluca Lake and trashed the place.

His fingerprints, on file after a previous arrest, had led police to his shack in Hollywood.

A guilty plea had reduced his jail time, and he was now out of prison.

Wyatt had explained all this to Abby, who’d let him think she was merely a researcher under contract to TPS. The information had proven helpful as she went about the business of installing herself in Emanuel Barth’s life. Eventually she had found a way to get Barth off the street again, this time for the next three to five years. Wyatt hadn’t handled the second arrest; he knew Barth had gone back to prison on a new conviction, but he had never learned of the role Abby played in putting him there. At least she hoped he hadn’t.

She had relied on Wyatt several times since. There was a higher concentration of wackos in Hollywood than in most other districts of LA, and as a veteran cop he knew most of them. He might even know Hickle.

She considered raising the subject but decided against it. Not tonight.

“You’re quiet this evening,” Wyatt said.

“Just zoning out. What brings you here, anyway?”

“Some nights I pass the time in Westwood. Nicer ambience than Scum City.” His term for Hollywood.

“How about you?”

“I live down the street. The Wilshire Royal.”

“Fancy digs. Those security firms must pay pretty good for research.”

“I survive.” “So far,” Wyatt said gravely.

She looked away. She had never told him what she actually did for a living, but he wasn’t dumb. He had patrolled the streets for years, and he knew people. He must have guessed some of the truth about her.

She knew that if he ever learned the full truth, he might really have to arrest her—no joke.

She steered the conversation in a less dangerous direction.

“I’ll bet I know what you’re here for.”

“Do you?”

“You were hoping to pick up a UCLA girl. Some of them might go for a cop.”

“I’m past thirty. Too old for them. Anyway, I don’t want a girl.”

“Your secret’s safe with me. Don’t ask, don’t tell, that’s my policy.”

“What I meant was, it’s a woman I want. A grown woman.” .