the other night.'
'Wrong about what?'
'When I said I didn't need any help, that I could handle myself and I didn't need anybody watching my back. I was wrong.' It was difficult for her to say this. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency had been the basic credo of her life.
'Yeah, well'-Wyatt shrugged-'we all make mistakes.'
The last thing Abby took out of Hickle's apartment was the Maidenform briefs he'd stolen from her laundry.
She noticed Wyatt eyeing the underwear with a puzzled look, but he didn't ask any questions, and she didn't feel like talking about it.
They returned via the fire escape to her apartment.
By now the gas had largely dissipated, and Abby felt ready to risk a spark. She turned on a table fan, blowing the rest of the fumes out the living room window.
In her bedroom, she removed the monitoring gear from the closet and arranged it on the bureau.
'More spy stuff?' Wyatt asked.
'Not anymore. Now it's your garden-variety TV and VCR.'
'And an audio deck with long-playing reel-to-reel tapes.'
'Quirky, but not particularly suspicious. I doubt anybody will even notice it on a casual walk through.
Can you get me a trash bag from the kitchen?'
While Wyatt fetched it, Abby went into the bathroom and poured a long drink of water. God, her throat was so sore. She was tempted to take aspirin, but she knew it would thin her blood and exacerbate any internal bleeding. At least her head no longer was beating like a bongo drum. Now it was more like a snare drum. That had to constitute an improvement.
She checked her eyes in the mirror. The pupils looked evenly dilated, a good sign. Maybe her injury wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Had she dodged the blow at the last instant, receiving only a glancing impact rather than a direct hit? Had her reflexes saved her from a skull fracture and brain injury? It was possible.
She didn't remember how she had reacted or even what Hickle had hit her with. She didn't remember the moment of impact at all.
'You're'hurting,' Wyatt said when she emerged from the bathroom. He had been watching her.
'It's nothing a little fresh air and exercise won't cure.' She'took the trash bag from him and stuffed it with the wrecked video cassette and audio reels, as well as the Maidenform briefs, which she sure as hell wasn't going to wear again.
Wyatt grunted.
'Maybe. But you're still going to the ER, if I have to drag you there by your hair.'
'How Neanderthal of you. But entirely unnecessary.'
She added the camera, microphones, and transmitters to the bag, along with the rubber gloves.
'I'm going of my own volition. See?' She held up the trash bag.
'All packed.'
In the living room she picked up her purse and checked to confirm that her gun was still there. She put her micro recorder and cell phone inside, pausing as she wondered if she should try Travis's number again.
Wyatt saw her hesitate.
'He still hasn't called back-whoever you reported to.'
'Maybe he can't. Maybe the alert came too late.
Maybe'-she hated to say it-'maybe he's dead, and the client too.'
'Kris Barwood,' Wyatt said. So he had noticed the photos.
Abby nodded. This time her head did not reel from the effort, and she took some comfort from that.
They left the apartment together and rode the elevator to ground level.
Wyatt said he would drive her in his squad car, and she said, 'Yes, of course.' In her present state she was unfit to sit behind the wheel of an automobile. If she had suffered any serious cranio- cerebral trauma, she could black out at any time.
'But,' she added, 'we have to move my Dodge out of the parking lot so your pals in blue don't find it.'
'Why?'
'So if I'm interviewed, I can say I drove myself to the hospital.' As he walked her to the Dodge, she explained more fully. Talking was good.
It kept her alert.
'See, I'm trying to keep all my options open until I know how things work out. I'd prefer to have Abby Gallagher disappear forever, like Connie Hammond.
But if Hickle or someone else identifies me to the police, I'll have to come clean. At least, reasonably clean.'
'How clean exactly?'
'I won't admit to any illegalities. No electronic surveillance, no breaking and entering. I was hired to move in next door to Hickle and keep an eye on him, that's all. He found me out and attacked me. When I came to, I was confused and disoriented. I drove myself to the hospital in a daze and didn't remember my obligation to talk to the cops until my memories came back at a convenient time.'
'Weak.'
'But un disprovable
'That's not a word.'
'It is now.'
'Hickle will tell them about the bugs in his apartment.
How are you going to explain that?'
'Explain what? The paranoid ravings of a homicidal stalker?'
'And if Hickle is never caught and your cover isn't blown?'
'Then farewell, Abby Gallagher, wherever you are.'
He looked at her with admiration.
'You've got it all worked out, haven't you?'
'This is nothing. You should see me in action when my brain hasn't been batted around like a beach ball.'
Wyatt moved the Dodge to a side street, then escorted her to-his cruiser. He asked which hospital she wanted. She ran through the options in her mind and decided that on a Friday night any emergency room in this part of town would be a war zone.
'I don't suppose you could chauffeur me all the way to Cedars Sinai she said. It was in West Hollywood, a better neighborhood.
'No problem.'
'It might be a problem for you if the watch commander starts to wonder where you've been for so long.'
'I'll tell him I stopped at a donut shop. That's always plausible for a cop, right?'
Abby smiled.
'No comment.'
Three blocks from the Gainford Arms, Wyatt detoured into an alley and discarded the trash bag in a Dumpster. As he pulled onto Santa Monica Boulevard, heading west, Abby fished her cell phone out of her purse and speed-dialed Travis's number. Still no answer.
'It'll be all right,' Wyatt said quietly.
'Sure. I know. The good guys always win, don't they?' She sank back wearily in the passenger seat and shut her eyes, repeating the words as a mantra.
'The good guys always win.'
Are you really him?' Hickle breathed.
'Are you Jackbnimble?'
'I'm him. You still thinking about using that twelve gauge The tension eased out of Hickle in a shaky expulsion of breath.
