someone in the apartment to protect her, and she couldn’t drift off. She had another little cry about Britt. Reaching for some tissues on her nightstand, she glanced at the alarm clock: 1:20. Only a half hour had passed since she’d said good night to Ben. It seemed longer.
Hannah climbed out of bed, wiped her eyes, and put on a robe. She padded down the hall to the living room, then peeked around the corner at Ben. He was lying on his side, the sheets wrapped around him. He turned toward her. “Hannah?”
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
He sat up, and the sheets fell down past his hairy chest, and bunched around his waist. He scratched his head. His blond hair was tousled. “I wasn’t really asleep,” he said softly. “You okay?”
Clutching the folds of her robe, Hannah stepped to the edge of the sofa. “Remember you asked me earlier tonight what I planned to do?” she asked, in a hushed tone. “I haven’t really had an actual plan since all of this started. Even if we find this killer, I’ll still have my problems with the police. Ben, I need to ask you a favor, a big favor.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“When we find out who’s behind all these killings and we’re ready to go to the police, can you go alone? I’ll need a head start to move on with Guy. We’ll need to begin someplace else—with new identities.”
“But don’t you think if we went to a lawyer and explained—”
“I can’t risk losing my son,” she cut in. “When the time comes, can I count on you to help me get away?”
“That’s the only option?” he asked.
“Can you think of another?”
He sighed. “If we can’t come up with a better plan, I’ll help you get away, Hannah. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “Good night again, Ben.”
Hannah started back down the hall. Just this morning, she’d been wary of him. She still didn’t know Ben Podowski very well. But now, she had to trust him. She trusted him with her life, and the life of her son.
Fifteen
“Who the hell is this supposed to be?”
Kenneth Woodley studied the photo. He sat at a small table by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Shillshell Bay. At this time of night, the water was black with silver-white ripples. Twinkling lights across the bay marked the start of land again.
Kenneth had heard Ray’s Boathouse was one of Seattle’s finer restaurants, so he’d arranged to meet his private detective in the bar upstairs. He had a late supper date in the formal dining area downstairs immediately following the meeting. The Sunday-night dinner rush had already peaked, but some muted chatter among lingering customers still competed with the Ella Fitzgerald recording piped through the elegant bar.
Kenneth tossed the photograph on the table. “This damn thing is so blurry and far away, it could be a picture of my wife or the goddamn Prince of Wales for all I can tell. Is this the best you could do?”
“I took it last night with a telephoto lens,” explained the private detective, a man named Walt Kirkabee. He was thirty-six, with straight, close-cropped black hair, a goatee, and the solid, husky build of a baseball player.
He offered Kenneth Woodley another photograph. “This guy stayed with her last night,” he said. “I took that shot earlier today.”
Setting down his martini glass, Kenneth snatched up the picture. “Looks like a doofus,” he muttered. “Have you ID’d him yet?”
“Not yet. He left her place—on foot—around ten this morning, and didn’t come back until a couple of hours ago. He was gone all day. But she stayed inside; never stepped outside the apartment.”
Kenneth tossed the photograph across the table at him, then sipped his martini. “So—you wasted the whole day waiting outside her place?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “You could have followed this joker around. Maybe he’s the guy who wasted your predecessor. Ever think about that?”
“I can’t be two places at once,” Walt argued. “And Hannah Doyle is the person you hired me to stake out.” He leaned back in his chair and sipped his club soda. “You might consider hiring another man to work with me, Mr. Woodley. It’s really a two-man job. We could work in shifts, or split up when we had to.”
Kenneth was shaking his head. “Christ, you guys are milking me dry as it is. I’ve already spent enough on this investigation. You guys aren’t even positive this
Sighing, Walt set another photo down on the table between them. “Take a look at this,” he said.
“What is it?” Kenneth asked, squinting at the picture. The shot was slightly out of focus, and appeared to have been blown up several times.
It was a photo of some bushes by a dumpster, but the detective traced an area of the bushes with his finger. “That’s a man,” he said.
Kenneth realized it was indeed a figure, lurking in the shadows between an alleyway dumpster and some shrubbery.
Walt slapped a similar shot on top of it. In this photo, a dark, phantom shape was skulking behind a tree.
“Someone else is watching her, Mr. Woodley,” the detective said. “I haven’t gotten a good look at him yet. These pictures are the best I could do. He seems to catch on whenever I’ve spotted him. It’s weird. It’s like he knows the camera and how to elude it. I’ve tried to take his picture several times the last couple of days, but those shots are the best I could do.” He set another photo in front of Kenneth. “Check this one out.”
Kenneth stared at a grainy, nighttime photograph of a parking lot. He didn’t notice anything unusual until the detective pointed to a ghostly image hovering behind a minivan. “That’s outside my hotel, Mr. Woodley,” Kirkabee said. “He’s following me too.”
Shaking his head, Kenneth laughed.
“It’s not funny. This could be the man who killed Ron Craig.”
“Maybe he’s working for her,” Kenneth said. He raised his martini glass. “That’s just what I’m after. We need to implicate her in your buddy’s murder. That’s why we’re not busting in on her and the kid right now. I want the goods on this bitch.” He glanced once again at the blurry figure in the photo. “Think this could be the doofus who was screwing her last night?”
Kirkabee shrugged. “I’m not sure. It could be.”
Kenneth smirked. “Well, just keep doing what you’re doing, and watch your ass. Sounds like he’ll be coming to you.”
Walt Kirkabee began to collect the photographs. “Ron was reporting directly to you, Mr. Woodley. We—and I mean the agency—we had no information for the police when they came to us about Ron’s murder. We had to refer them to you.”
Kenneth drained his martini glass. “Yeah? So? Tell me something I don’t know.”
The detective shrugged. “Well, I was about to ask you that same thing. Is there something we don’t know? You told the police that Ron wasn’t having any luck tracking down your wife and son. But you have me staking out this Hannah Doyle woman, and half the time I’m watching her from a parking lot where my predecessor was
