The Shadow Hunter Read Online Free PDF

It’s not your fault.”
    Abby didn’t answer.
    “How’d you get here from LAX?” Travis asked.
    She blinked, surprised by the change of subject.
    “Taxicab.”
    “Then you’ll need a ride home.”
    “I’ll call another taxi.”
    “No. Let me drive you. On the way over, I can give you a more thorough briefing on the Barwood case.
    There wasn’t time to go into much detail this morning on the phone.”
    “Okay, Paul. Thanks.”
    They didn’t speak again until they had left the TPS office suite after picking up Abby’s carryon at the reception desk. In the elevator, descending to the underground parking garage, she asked Travis, “How are things going? Business-wise, I mean.”
    He shrugged.
    “Could be better. Another client ditched us on Friday. Same old story. He no longer had confidence in TPS.”
    “Because of Devin Corbal.” Because of me, she wanted to say.
    “It’s not so much the incident itself as the ongoing, never-ending media coverage. You’d think they’d come up with something else to talk about. Last week the Times ran a hit piece on us—the usual second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking. Our clients read something like that, and half of them are ready to jump ship.”
    “A lot of them already have,” she said quietly, thinking of the empty office space, the staff cutbacks. She knew that Travis had always prided himself on keeping his operation small, his services exclusive.
    There had never been more than fifty names on the TPS client list. It was a policy that had left little margin for error. Now, with clients dropping away month after month, he was faring the end of the business he had founded.
    “We’ve suffered some losses,” Travis conceded.
    “But we’ll ride it out. In the end, we’ll come back stronger than before.”
    He seemed to believe it. She wished she could be so confident.
    His Mercedes C43 was waiting in the garage. Travis put Abby’s bag into the trunk and let her in on the passenger side. Before shutting the door, he leaned in and kissed her, a brief, hard kiss that sped up her heart rate.
    He hadn’t kissed her in the TPS office suite. One of their rules was that there would be no displays of intimacy in the presence of TPS employees or clients.
    Travis kept one hand on the wheel, the other clasping hers, as he guided the sedan into traffic on the Avenue of the Stars.
    “How does it feel to be back in town?” he asked.
    “Not bad at all. Its warm here today.” Her window was partially lowered, air rushing at her face.
    “In the seventies. Warmer than Jersey, I’ll bet.”
    “} had to buy an overcoat. Used it for a few days and donated it to charity. Couldn’t fit in my carryon.”
    “What about your gun? How’d you transport that?”
    “Fedexed it from Newark Airport this morning.
    Same-day delivery. It should be waiting for me when I get home.”
    “Who were you working for in Jersey?”
    “Gil Harris. He relocated there from San Diego a few months ago. Runs a security firm in Camden. A local manufacturing plant contracted him when they decided their in-house security couldn’t handle an ex32 employee named Frank Harrington. The guy was making threats against the company. They wanted me to find out if he was serious.”
    Travis steered the Mercedes onto Santa Monica Boulevard, heading west.
    “Was he?”
    “Darn tootin’. I found his suicide note in the hard drive of his PC.
    He was planning to ram through the factory gate and open fire with a pair of high-powered rifles modified to fire on full automatic.”
    “How’d you get to look in his computer?”
    “Well, first I let Frank pick me up at a local bar and take me home. We had a nightcap, and I slipped a Tohypnol into his drink. It put him out cold. Then I searched the place, found the note and printed it out, and left it where the police couldn’t miss it. Then I called nine-one-one and reported a prowler at Frank’s address. He was still asleep when I