"Kris, what happened exactly?"
"What happened…"
"Tell me the who, what, where. The bare essentials.
The time line." Abby hoped an appeal to the woman's journalistic training would prod her to organize her thoughts.
The tactic worked. Kris straightened, her gaze clarifying.
"All right, here it is. Howard was with me for most of the night. This morning he left for an interview at the sheriff's office. It was supposed to be routine. I expected him to return, but he never did.
Finally I reached him at home. He was in a meeting with his lawyer, he said. He promised to call back."
"But he didn't?"
"No. Half an hour ago I called again. This time Martin Greenfeld answered. Howard's attorney. He said-well, it's just incredible what he said."
"Take it easy. Go slow." "He said detectives had arrived with a search warrant for the house.
Our house. They'd searched and found something. They seemed excited about it. Martin saw it in a clear plastic evidence bag. It looked like a phone, he said. A cell phone."
Abby knew it had to be the phone registered to Western Regional Resources, the phone Howard had used to call Hickle's apartment.
"Where did they find it?" she asked.
"Martin wasn't sure. It could have been in a closet downstairs, but why? Howard and I have three cell phones, but we don't keep any of them in a closet."
"And after this," Abby prompted, "Howard disappeared?"
Nod.
"He said he had to use the bathroom. Must have slipped out of house via the rear deck. He went to Tern and Mark's place down the road and asked if he could borrow one of their cars-they've got three.
Claimed he had to visit me here and his Lexus wouldn't start. They gave him the keys. He got out of the Reserve without being spotted.
Now he's gone, just gone.
And it's on the news, every channel. They're saying he's a suspect in the case, and he fled. Martin won't give me any details, and I'm afraid to call anybody in the news business-I can't talk openly with them.
They're my friends, but they won't hesitate to screw me if they can get a jump on the competition. I'm about to go home now, and I still don't know what's going on."
Her last statement was a plea. Abby knew she had to answer it.
"Travis told you I was here?" she asked, stalling a little.
"Yes, he mentioned it."
"But he didn't say anything else, anything about Howard?"
"Not a word."
"Well… he should have." Courage was a quality Abby prided herself on possessing, but she felt it desert her as she met Kris's earnest, beseeching gaze.
She steeled herself for honesty.
"All right, here's what I know. Hickle had an informant who ratted me out.
We don't know exactly who it was, but…"
Kris shook her head in automatic denial.
"No. Oh, no, impossible."
"There's evidence."
"What evidence?" Kris got up, paced the room.
"The phone? Is that it? The cell phone they found?"
"I think so."
"What could a phone possibly mean?"
Abby answered with a question of her own.
"Has Howard ever mentioned a company called Western Regional Resources?"
"No."
"On Thursday night Hickle got a call at his apartment, probably to arrange some kind of rendezvous. I traced the call. It was made from a cell phone registered to Western Regional Resources. Travis found evidence that the company is something Howard set up offshore-without your knowledge, apparently."
"No, it can't be true. Why would he want to help that man? What conceivable motive could he have?"
"Well, this is only speculation…"
"Say it," Kris snapped, losing patience.
"Western Regional Resources isn't the only such corporation Howard established. He owns several. He's been moving his assets-your assets-into secret accounts offshore."
A beat of silence in the room while Kris took in this statement and its implications.
"Hiding our assets," she said finally.
"That's what you mean, isn't it? Hiding them from me?"
"It looks that way."
"So he can leave me and… when we split the estate…"
"Exactly"
"Then it's true." Kris turned away, staring blankly at nothing.
"What's true, Kris?"
"That he's been unfaithful to me. I suspected it. But I couldn't quite believe…" Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I wonder who she is."
Abby didn't answer. This was one blow she could spare Kris.
"We might be wrong," she said weakly.
"About the transference of assets, the corporations he's set up?"
"Well, no. That part is pretty well nailed down, but it doesn't prove he's Hickle's accomplice. Not absolutely."
"Not absolutely," Kris echoed, then added in the same faraway voice, "I wonder if he thought I was unfaithful too."
"Why would he think that?"
"I've been offered the opportunity. I turned it down.
But Howard might not have known that. He might have thought I went through with it." She looked away.
"It's even possible he wanted us both dead."
Abby couldn't see what Kris was getting at, but she asked no questions.
Sometimes it was better to just let a person talk.
"No." Kris shook her head after a moment's reflection.
"That doesn't make sense. Howard couldn't have anticipated that Paul would be with me in the car last night, could he? It was the first time he'd ever accompanied me home."
Paul.
Abby sat very still, but under her the bed seemed to shift as if in a small earthquake, or perhaps it was her world that had shifted off its foundation.
In the same moment Kris came back to herself, realizing what she had revealed.
"Oh, God, I didn't mean to say all that."
Abby found a smile somewhere inside her and brought it to the surface.
"It's okay, Kris."
"Did you know? Did he tell you about his… his interest in me? I mean, you work so closely together."
Closer than you know, Abby thought-but not quite close enough: "He didn't have to tell me." she answered, he? voice steady, her face an emotionless mask.
"I guessed."
"Oh." Kris was relieved.
"Of course. You're intuitive about people, aren't you?" "Nearly always," Abby said lightly, putting the slightest ironic emphasis on the first word.
"So Travis suggested having an affair?"
"He didn't put it quite that crudely, but, well, he made it clear he was available. He's not seeing anyone now, apparently."
"When did the idea first come up?"
"Oh, I guess around the time when I was threatening to leave TPS. He was very persuasive in getting me to stay. At first I thought the rest of what he said was just part of his sales pitch. Later, when he restated his intentions, I began to realize he was serious."
"You must have seen him fairly often."
"He would drop by the house every week or so. Almost always when Howard was out playing golf. He's quite a golfer, my husband. Paul would update me on the situation. It was mostly business, but then there would be a more personal touch. He knew I was unhappy with Howard. He said we would be good together.
But he was a gentleman about it. No pressure at all."
"Did anything happen?"
"No. I may be the last person in the greater LA area to still honor my marriage vows. I won't say I wasn't tempted. He can be a charming man.
And who knows?
Maybe we would be good together, as he said. But we never did anything.
It was all very civilized."
"Do you think he's still interested?" Abby asked, already knowing the answer.
"I know he is. I think, in some odd way, he's a lonely man. He told me once that the women he's been with have never meant much to him.
They're merely-well, diversions, I guess. Novelties. Like with Howard and his toys."