But with Abby, things had been different. She was not like Jill or Kris. She was kind to him. She treated him like a human being. She made him feel like a man.
But if it was all an act? If she was the enemy?
Pounding violence filled his skull. He wanted to scream and smash things. He lowered his head. Had to think. Jack could be telling the truth or lying. Abby could be what she was or a fraud. There was no way for him to gauge Jack's honesty directly. As for Abby… He knew her. She lived right next door. She was not merely a made-up name on a computer screen, a collection of pixels that mocked him. She was real and close, and he could learn the truth about her.
He typed a third reply.
I'll check out your story and see for myself.
This was the right thing to say. He clicked Send.
He had no plan, but he would come up with one. He was smart. He would work something out. And if she had indeed deceived him… He'd kill her. Yes.
First her, then Kris.
If she had deceived him. If.
Hickle clung to that word as he deleted Jack's email message and signed off.
If.
Such a little word, but Abby's life hung on it. ** Abby climbed onto the fire escape and stepped across the narrow landing to Hickle's bedroom window.
The lights in his apartment were on, but because the blinds were drawn she couldn't see in. A glance at his empty parking space reassured her that he had not returned.
Although his window was open, the screen was still in place. From outside, it proved difficult to remove.
She wished she had brought her locksmith kit, which contained a thin, flexible celluloid strip that could slip into the crack of a door and open a latch. It might have allowed her the leverage to work the screen loose.
She couldn't take the time to go back inside her apartment and get the kit. Rummaging in her purse, she found a Swiss army knife. Among its spring loaded tools was a pair of wire cutters. She snipped through part of the screen, inserted her fingers in the gap, and lifted the screen out of the window frame, then climbed into the apartment.
The code for the call return service was the star key followed by 6 and 9. Abby punched the three buttons and listened as a synthesized voice gave her the most recent caller's phone number. It was a local number with an unfamiliar exchange. She dictated it into her micro recorder Later she could look it up. She subscribed to an online reverse directory service that offered a comprehensive listing of residential and commercial phone numbers.
There was one more item of business in Hickle's apartment. She'd brought an infinity transmitter from her tool kit; it broadcast on the same frequency as the two microphones she had already installed.
Quickly she wired the transmitter into the base of the telephone.
Hickle could see it if he took the trouble to look, but this was a chance she'd decided to take. If the mystery caller phoned again, she wanted his voice on tape. A voiceprint could then be made for purposes of identification.
Done with the phone, she wiped off her prints. Mission accomplished.
Time to blow this joint.
She returned to Hickle's bedroom, intending to make her escape through the window, then paused, noticing his laundry basket on the floor. It was still full to the brim. He had never put away his clothes.
Odd. He'd had plenty of time.
She knelt and rummaged through the clothes, not sure what she was looking for. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except that a few items seemed curiously damp, though the rest were dry.
Almost as if a wet article of clothing had been stuffed into the basket… She touched the carpet and felt a wet spot, then another and another. The trail of drops led to the bathroom.
In Hickle's shower, hanging from the showerhead, dripping dry, was a pair of white high-cut Maidenform briefs.
Hers, of course.
When she'd sensed a presence in the laundry room, she had not been imagining things. Hickle had been watching her. He must have taken cover in the stairwell, and when she'd explored the boiler room, he had risked slipping past her and stealing this particular item right out of the washing machine.
His prize. His little piece of her, to touch and smell and kiss…
Abby shivered. She had a sudden urge to grab the poor, wrinkled, soggy thing that hung on the showerhead and abscond with it, but she couldn't.
If it was missing, Hickle would know she had been in here.
She would have to leave it. And she would try not to think about what he would use it for.
She left the bathroom and braced herself against the bedroom window, preparing to climb through, and then she looked past the railing, down at the parking lot.
Hickle's car was there.
It was parked under the carport, headlights off.
Hickle himself was nowhere in sight. He must already be inside the building, maybe riding the elevator to the fourth floor.
Get out, a voice in Abby's mind yelled.
Hickle would be enraged to find her here. And he was armed; he'd taken the duffel bag. Her Smith amp; Wesson was a poor match for a shotgun.
Unless she killed him instantly, he would have time to pump out a couple of shells, and at close range even a single shotgun blast would literally tear her apart.
"Oh, that's good, Abby," she hissed, scrambling through the window.
"Keep thinking those happy thoughts."
She was on the fire escape. Her instinct was to scurry to the safety of her bedroom, but she couldn't leave until the window screen had been replaced.
Installing the screen from outside was harder than she'd expected. She got hold of it through the gap she'd cut in the mesh, then jammed the top of the screen into the frame, but the bottom stubbornly refused to snap into position. The panel was large and awkward, difficult to maneuver, especially with the Venetian blind in the way, jangling and clattering.
She heard a squeal of hinges. Hickle's door, opening in the other room.
He was home.
With a last effort she wedged the screen in place.
Footsteps inside the apartment. He was coming into the bedroom, probably to put away the duffel bag.
She ducked low. No time to crawl away. She hugged the wall.
The blind swung and rattled in the bedroom window.
Hickle would surely notice. He did. She heard the complaint of the floorboards as he approached to investigate. She unclasped her purse and curled her finger over the Smith's trigger.
The blind opened, brightening the fire escape. She pressed close to the brick wall under the windowsill.
Across the iron railing loomed Hickle's shadow, large and misshapen.
His head tilted at a funny angle. He was peering out, surveying the night.
If he glanced down, he would see her. She waited, not breathing. She thought again of what a shotgun shell would do to her at this distance.
Like a grenade going off in her chest.
He might have spotted her already. Even now he might be removing the shotgun from his duffel, preparing to fire, while she huddled like a child playing hide-'n'-seek. It took all her willpower to remain motionless.
His shadow shifted. She saw a movement of his arm as if lifting the shotgun-Then there was a metallic clatter and a fall of darkness, and she realized he had merely reached up to pull the cord that closed the blind.
The tramp of his footsteps retreated. He had not seen her. He must have concluded that a gust of wind had set the blind swaying.
Close one, Abby thought. Kind of thing that really gets the blood circulating.
She slipped inside her apartment, then spent the next few minutes reacquainting herself with the experience of being alive and intact and ambulatory. Her throat was dry, and the back of her neck was stiff with tension.