From the bedroom had come a sound. A rustle of movement, barely audible. It might be Steve or Courtney, the housekeeper, but irrationally she was certain it was him.
She heard it again-a whisper of motion, the soft scrape of fabric on fabric.
She turned from the mirror. The hairbrush was her only weapon.
Absurdly she raised it like a club, then stepped out of the bathroom, her gaze darting, and there he was by the windows, silhouetted against the vertical blind… 'Kris? You okay?'
All the tension leaked out of her, because it was Howard's voice.
She dropped the hairbrush. It thumped on the floor.
'Damn,' she breathed.
'Don't do that to me.'
'Do what?'
She shook her head, dismissing his question.
'I thought you were him,' she said simply.
Her husband crossed the room to take her hand in his.
'Come on, that's crazy.'
'I heard someone out here. I thought it might be-well, it could have been…'
'No, it couldn't. Not a chance.'
From a strictly rational standpoint Howard was probably correct. But how could she explain to him that rationality played little part in her fears and nightmares, the false alarms and spasms of panic that made her glance over her shoulder at every stray noise and flicker of shadow?
'You're right,' she said, feeling empty.
'Guess I'm a little overwrought.'
He stooped and retrieved her hairbrush, placing it gently in her grasp as if she were a child.
'Don't worry about it. Don't worry about anything.'
'Good advice. Hard to follow.'
He showed her a warm smile that lit up his square, tanned face. After retiring last year at fifty, he had taken to hanging around the house and eating too much. A belt of flab hung around his waist, and his neck had grown thick and loose.
'You're no good at taking orders,' Howard said.
'Me, I'm great at it.
Travis told me not to worry, and I haven't.'
'Your faith is touching.'
'Isn't it, though?' His smile faded.
'Speaking of Travis, we'll be late for that meeting if we don't leave soon.'
'Give me another minute to get dressed.'
'Right. See how well I take orders? I'm a natural.'
He moved toward the hall.
She stopped him.
'While you're waiting, could you check the cottage for me?'
'Is that necessary?'
'I want to know if he's called.'
'Let's assume he has. How does it help you to find out?'
'I have to know. If you won't check, I will.'
'If you worry about it all the time, it defeats the whole purpose of having Travis's people around.'
'Their purpose isn't to keep me happy. Their purpose is to keep me alive.'
'You're getting worked up again.'
His patronizing tone infuriated her.
'I have a right to get worked up. It's me he's after. Or is that another thing I'm supposed to not think about?' She turned away, suddenly exhausted.
'Check the cottage, all right? I have to get changed.'
She returned to the bathroom and finished brushing her hair, performing the task with more vigor than necessary. When she emerged, the bedroom was empty. Howard had gone.
She changed into a pantsuit. At the studio she would put on whatever outfit the clothing coordinator had selected, usually something in blue to bring out her eyes.
Before leaving the bedroom, she went to the windows for another look at the beach. The tide was going out. Seagulls bobbed and weaved on chancy currents of air. She wished she could sit and watch the birds and not deal with this meeting Travis had called or with anything else, ever.
Her life had been easier when she was a twenty-two-year-old radio reporter in Duluth, Minnesota.
True, there had been no money for rent or food, but she had been too busy to care. Maybe she should have stayed in Duluth, married the junior manager at the radio station. Sometimes she wished she didn't have this hard-edged ambition inside her, driving her to high-profile assignments, more money, more pressure.
But there had always been part of her that felt she would die without fame and recognition and strangers turning their heads. Now she had all of that, and because of it-because of one particular stranger whose head she'd turned-she might die anyway.
Life was a tangle. Her life, at least. Maybe everybody's.
Downstairs she found Courtney dusting the autographed golf balls in Howard's display cabinet.
'They're waiting in the Lincoln,' Courtney said.
'Mr. Drury and Mr. Barwood.'
Kris glanced at her watch. She was running late.
Having Steve bring the car out of the garage to idle in the driveway was Howard's way of telling her so.
A garden path, bordered by rosebushes, white oleander, and bird-of-paradise, led from the main house to the guest cottage attached to the garage. A gray Lincoln Town Car, the Carrier model, idled in the driveway, Steve Drury at the wheel. The car was her own, but the pleasure of driving it was one more thing Hickle had taken from her.
Steve got out and opened the rear door for her. He had changed into slacks, a button-down shirt, and a suit jacket that concealed his Beretta. She slipped into the backseat, next to Howard, while Steve slid behind the wheel and adjusted the volume on the Alpine audio system. He was playing a CD of Mozart's Magic Flute, her favorite. It soothed her.
The Lincoln pulled out of the driveway and headed down a narrow lane colonnaded with tall eucalyptus trees. At the gate, guards waved the Town Carthrough, and the sedan accelerated onto Pacific Coast Highway, rushing over the bridge that straddled Malibu Creek. In the lagoon fed by the estuary, a few shore birds lifted themselves into the afternoon sun.
'Did you check?' she asked Howard tonelessly.
He acknowledged her only with a half turn in her direction.
'I checked. Nothing serious to report.'
'Meaning?'
'He called a couple of times this morning. Not since then. It's been a quiet afternoon. Maybe he's losing interest.'
'Sure. Maybe.'
But she knew Raymond Hickle would never lose interest in her as long as she was alive.
Hickle sat on the roadside, a hat covering his face, and watched the Town Car pull out of the Malibu Reserve gate. He took a good look at it when it turned onto the coast highway. The car was close; he could see his own reflection in the polished panels of the passenger doors.
In the lightly tinted rear window there was the vague outline of a silhouetted figure.
There was no chance that Kris or her driver would spot him. Sitting cross-legged on the curb, the hat pulled low, he was just one of the many faceless derelicts who wandered through Malibu and other towns along the California coast. He could watch Kris come and go, and no one would be the wiser.
His gaze followed the car as it disappeared down the road. He kept staring after it even when it was long
