of rival.”
A kid, Hawkshaw thought with weariness and guilt. He tried to keep himself indifferent, unassailable. “Why can’t the police handle it?” he asked.
Corbett said, “The guy’s smart, Hawkshaw. He doesn’t threaten her outright. But he never stops watching her. And he lets her know he’s watching—and that he wants her.”
Hawkshaw sighed in disgust. He didn’t like the sound of this. An anonymous stalker was the worst and most slippery kind. “You’ve got no idea who this psycho is?”
“None. He’s a voice on a phone. He’s a note in the mail. He’s the ice pick in your tire. The dead bird on your doorstep.”
“How long has he been after her?”
“Eighteen months,” Corbett said. “It started with a couple of notes. Anonymous calls. It built. She changed her number, kept it unlisted. I encrypted her computer so nobody could get into her e-mail. But nothing works. She needs to get the hell out of here.”
Hawkshaw stared at the shark. It returned his gaze with a glassy, emotionless eye.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Hasn’t she got people of her own to go to?”
“No. Her parents are dead. She’s a widow. She’s got a friend in another city who’ll help. But I don’t want her going straight there. I want to throw this bastard a curve. Have her take such a crooked path, he can’t follow.”
“And I’m the crooked path she takes.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Hawkshaw. This woman doesn’t want charity. She doesn’t want to run—she’s a fighter. If the guy was a threat only to her, I don’t think she’d budge. But there’s the kid.”
I don’t want to help widows and children, Hawkshaw thought with resentment. Throw them to the sharks. He ran a forefinger along the edges of the shark’s teeth. They felt pleasantly sharp.
“She’s no shrinking violet,” Corbett insisted. “She’s an extremely independent, self-reliant woman—”
Then let her be independent and reliant by herself, Hawkshaw thought.
“—listen, Hawkshaw,” Corbett continued, “this guy who’s after her, he’s getting ready to explode. All the signs are there. Something very bad is about to happen unless she and the kid get out of here. It’s instinct. I can’t shake it. You understand?”
Corbett’s instinct. Hawkshaw understood all too well. He stared at the scar that snaked up the tanned flesh of his right forearm. Oh, yes, he would always remember Corbett’s instinct; he was beholden to it for the rest of his life.
But he said, “My Galahad days are over, Corbett. I’m a hermit now. I like it.”
“But you’re staying there?” Corbett asked, slyness in his voice. “In Florida?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Hawkshaw said. “I’ll probably sell the place. I’ve got to fix it up. One of these days.”
“That’s what you said six months ago.”
“Time flies.”
“Look, she could help you. She’s got energy, she’s enterprising,” Corbett said. “Up here she can’t even work anymore. The stalker—he disrupts her workday, calls her co-workers. He’s starting to harass everybody she comes into contact with.”
Bingo, thought Hawkshaw with a sure, sickening realization. Suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this. “Everybody?”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Corbett said.
Hawkshaw closed his eyes. As in a vision, he saw Corbett’s round, good-natured face, the receding hair, the mustache that never seemed even on both sides.
He saw Cherry, Corbett’s wife, pretty and ever-generous. He thought of Corbett’s adolescent twin girls in last year’s Christmas snapshot, their smiles silvery with braces. He was godfather to both.
Hawkshaw opened his eyes. He wiped a cobweb from the shark’s fin. “Everybody includes you, doesn’t it, Corbett? It includes Cherry and the girls, too. Don’t bloody lie to me. I know you too well.”
There was a moment of silence. Finally Corbett said, “That’s not a factor. It goes with the territory. My major concern is for the woman and her son. That’s the truth.”
Oh, hell. Depression stole over Hawkshaw like a long, cold shadow.
He sat down on the old couch. He thought of Corbett and all he owed to Corbett.
A hopeless sensation yawned within him. He knew what he was going to say and wished with all his heart that he could say something else.
“All right,” Hawkshaw said. “Fax the details to me, in care of the Flamingo Motel.” He gave Corbett the number. “Tell the woman and kid I’ll take them on. For a while. A couple weeks maybe.”
“Good. If we cover her tracks well enough, maybe she can break free of him. Go her own way.”
“Amen,” said Hawkshaw. The sooner the better.
There was another awkward silence. Then, with feeling, Corbett said, “You won’t be sorry about this.”
Yes, I will, thought Hawkshaw.
He was already sorry.
THE DETECTIVE, CORBETT, came back from the downstairs pay phone and into his private office. He was a stockily built man with thinning hair and a mustache that always seemed slightly off-center.
He gave Kate a smile that had no happiness in it. “You’re going away,” he said. “It’s set.”
Kate’s arm tightened around Charlie, her six-year-old son. “Can’t you at least tell me where?” she asked.
Charlie wriggled. He hated sitting still and was fidgety.
Corbett shook his head. “It’s best you don’t know yet. Out of the Midwest. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry.”
I have no secrets, Kate thought numbly. Wherever I am, whatever I do, the stalker knows. He always finds out. Always.
She let Charlie slip away from her. He ran to the window, stood on tiptoe and looked out at the summer afternoon.
Her hand fell uselessly to her lap. She could only stare at Corbett’s kind, jowly face.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
She swallowed. “How—how long do you think we’ll have to stay there?”
“I don’t know,” Corbett said. “Till we’re sure he hasn’t tracked you. Once we know that, you’re free to move on.”
To move on.
The
