She worked it slowly, trying not to think about the gas and the pilot light and what 1300 degrees would feel like. Hotter than Phoenix in July, if such a thing was possible.
The cam loosened when it was set to 8. That was the first number in the combination. Six was the second.
Eight. Six. Put it together, Abby. Eight. Six.
Channel Eight. The news at six… and ten.
The last two digits were 1 and 0. 8610 was the combination.
Had to be. She set the cams in that sequence, and the padlock released.
She was free.
Now get the window open. Hurry.
Prone on her stomach, she crawled across the floor.
Her breathing was awful to hear. Her chest heaved, and she couldn't get oxygen into her lungs, and her head was sizzling, and there was pain like a crushing pressure at the back of her eyes. Sometimes, she thought, I really hate my job.
She came up against the bedroom wall. The window was just above her.
Close, but she couldn't reach it, couldn't raise herself off the floor.
Too weak. Come on, she chided silently, you can do a pull-up, can't you?
With one arm extended, she got hold of the windowsill and, using it as leverage, lifted herself to her knees.
The window was locked. Hickle, the bastard, had actually taken the time to secure the latch. She fumbled at it, but her fingers, glazed with sweat, couldn't find a grip. This whole situation was starting to get on her nerves in a big way. Nothing was easy. And time was running out.
Finally she got the latch open. Okay, lift the window.
She put both hands on the sash bar and strained.
Nothing happened. She had no strength. She battered the glass with her fists. Her blows fell like sighs. A kitten could have done more damage.
Again she tried to raise the window. Still no luck.
Weakness overtook her, and she lowered her head, coughing. God, she was tired. She wanted to sleep… Plenty of time for rest later.
Eternal rest, if it worked out that way. At the moment she was still alive. She would not waste whatever time she had left. The explosion could come at any moment. She had to dilute the fumes with clean air, or she was dead. Open the damn window. Do it now.
She put everything she had into a final effort, pushing upward with her last strength, and the window cracked open a few inches.
Success.
She rested her head on the sill and tried to draw a breath, but her throat had closed. There was air coming in, pure air, and she couldn't breathe it. What the hell was wrong with her lungs?
But it was simple, really. Her vision was graying out, and her ears hummed, and she was going to lose consciousness.
She had driven herself to the point of collapse, and although she had forced the window ajar, it was not enough to save her.
"Nice try, girlfriend," Abby murmured, "but no lollipop."
The floor rushed up, and she fell away into the dark.
"… vehicle is a VW Rabbit wanted for felony evading, license plate…"
Wyatt heard the call on his radio as he cruised back to Hollywood Station after supervising a crime scene on Highland-drugstore hold-up, nobody injured.
The suspect had taken a hundred bucks out of the cash register and three packages of Trojans. Apparently he had a big night planned.
It was nothing major, and Wyatt had passed the time pondering what to do about Abby. He had decided on a confrontation tomorrow. Call her, arrange a lunch meeting, then demand to know what she'd gotten involved in. And once she told him? He didn't know. His planning hadn't made it that far.
At 11:40 he had been relieved of responsibility for the crime scene by the arrival of a bored detective, accompanied by an equally bored forensic photographer.
Now he was driving down Melrose, listening to the dispatcher report a CHP stop gone awry on the Santa Monica Freeway, miles away, twenty minutes ago. He wondered why the BOL was going out over a Hollywood Division frequency. As he turned onto Wilcox, he got his answer.
"… registered to a Hollywood resident…"
That explained it. There was a fair chance the suspect would be stupid enough to return home. Patrol units in Hollywood were advised to watch for a VW Rabbit with the reported plate number, and to keep an eye on the suspect's residence.
"… address, 1554 Gainford…"
Wyatt stiffened. The Gainford Arms.
"… name, Hickle, Raymond, that's Henry Ida Charles…"
It was Hickle who had been speeding on the freeway, Hickle who had fled a traffic stop. Wyatt had no idea what this might mean, except that Hickle was out of control and dangerous and crazed.
"Abby," he breathed, a cold feeling in his gut.
The time was 11:48 when Hickle abandoned his car in a small beach parking lot off Pacific Coast Highway.
He'd made it. He was in Malibu, on Kris's territory.
The police had not intercepted him.
The access path to the public beach was never closed. He lugged his duffel down the dirt path, then headed into the woods that bordered Malibu Reserve, his flashlight probing the foliage.
Midnight was close, the time frame tight, but he no longer feared failure. He was destined to succeed. He could feel it. Kris had messed with him, and she would pay, as Abby had paid.
Thinking of Abby made him wonder if she was dead yet. Fifty minutes had passed since he'd released the gas. By now she must have been asphyxiated or blown to bits.
Now it was Kris's turn to die.
Not far from the Reserve's perimeter fence, he located the mouth of the drainage pipe. The pipe was two feet in diameter, jutting out of a mound of earth under a eucalyptus tree. There was a small brackish pond nearby, and evidently the pipe had been laid down as a flood control device, its purpose to channel overflow from the pond away from the path and into the ravine that ran through the fenced compound.
On hands and knees Hickle bellied inside, dragging the duffel after him.
The bag got stuck in the opening, and briefly he was afraid it wouldn't fit-he'd never brought weapons on his previous outings, only the Polaroid camera-but when he turned the bag sideways it slipped through.
He crawled over leaves, twigs, candy wrappers, and other detritus washed in by storms. Beetles skittered out of his path. Some backtracked and flitted over him, tickling like light fingers.
He didn't mind. He had come this way before, and there were always bugs.
He'd never made the passage at night, though. His flashlight traced pale loops and whorls on the pipe's soiled interior. Past the light there was only darkness, not the reassuring glow of sunshine that had drawn him forward on past occasions. He guessed he had come halfway, which meant he was under the fence.
Inside the Reserve.
Kris had surrounded herself with a fence and a gatehouse, a bodyguard at the wheel of her car and other bodyguards stationed in her guest cottage, yet all these precautions had proven useless against him. He was unstoppable. He was a force of nature, a man of destiny.
He crawled faster.
Wyatt parked by a fire hydrant outside the Gainford Arms and mounted the front steps two at a time. The lobby door was locked, and he didn't have a master key. He buzzed Abby's apartment, got no answer.
He went around to the rear door, locked also. He scanned the parking lot and saw her white Dodge Colt in its assigned space.
She was home. She wasn't answering the buzzer.
And Hickle, the man she'd been spying on, was running from the police.
With his side-handle baton he smashed the glass panel adjacent to the rear door, then reached in and released the latch. Inside, he stabbed the elevator call button, but when the elevator didn't instantly arrive he gave up on it and ran up the stairs. At the fourth floor he exited, slowing to a walk. There was a remote chance Hickle had already come back and was waiting to ambush the first cop who arrived. Might have been a good idea to check the parking lot for Hickle's Volkswagen or call for backup. A little late for either plan now.