Dangerous Games by Michael Prescott Page A

it.”
    “Maybe Kolb was stupid enough to leave all that stuff sitting around.”
    “Was he?”
    Abby shook her head slowly. Her husky voice dropped to an even lower register. “He’s not stupid. Very few of them are.”
    Tess mentally ran through the menu of felonies that had been committed for the purpose of jailing William Kolb. Breaking and entering, tampering with evidence, arson…“You took the law entirely into your own hands.”
    “I go by my own rules,” Abby said.
    “Sounds more like no rules.”
    “I got the job done.”
    “You put a man in prison for a year.”
    “And prevented him from putting a woman six feet under. He was going to kidnap her. The threat level was high. The risk was immediate. I had to take action.”
    “All you did was implement a stopgap measure.”
    “As it turned out, maybe. But there was no guarantee Kolb would survive his time in stir. Lots of times, a cop won’t last long in a population of convicts.”
    “You were hoping he’d be killed?”
    Abby shrugged. “It wouldn’t have broken my heart.”
    Cold , Tess thought. This woman was cold.
    “You’re thinking I’m a cold customer,” Abby said. The uncanny accuracy of this statement was unnerving. “Maybe I am. But I prefer to think of myself as practical. I do what has to be done. Anyhow, Kolb is still breathing.”
    “And he’s out—which means Madeleine Grant is no better off than she was before.”
    “Not necessarily. A lot of times, these guys lose interest in a particular target. They move on to a new obsession.”
    “Or maybe they don’t.”
    “Madeleine is aware of the risk. But she’s not as helpless as she used to be. I taught her a few things.”
    “Self-defense measures?”
    “Nothing fancy. Just enough to get her away from the bad guy—I hope.”
    “Is that the reason she carries a gun wherever she goes?”
    “I may have suggested that.”
    “Well, there’s the solution to all our civic problems. Let everybody be armed and dangerous.”
    “You’re armed. I don’t see you handing in your firearm.”
    “I’m a federal agent.”
    “That gives you more of a right to self-defense than the civilians who pay your salary?”
    Tess looked away, rubbing her forehead. “Oh, my God, I’m not going to get into this.” The last thing she needed was a gun-control debate.
    “You see, from your point of view, only the licensed experts get to deal with crime. Everyone else should step back and get out of your way. Which would be fine—if you could handle the problem. But you can’t. There’s too much crime, and there aren’t enough cops and federales to take more than a nibble out of it. So that opens the door for alternative measures—people like me.”
    “People like you only make the problem worse,” Tess said through tight lips.
    “I didn’t make Madeleine’s problem worse. The system failed her. I didn’t.”
    Tess took a moment to calm down. She had decided she disliked and disapproved of Abby, but she couldn’t let her personal feelings dictate the course of the conversation. “And why are you telling me all this?” she asked.
    “After Madeleine talked to you, she called me and explained the situation. We agreed we’d better come clean. If Kolb is the Rain Man—”
    Tess glanced at her. “How do you know that term?”
    “I know some people.”
    “In the Bureau?”
    “In the LAPD. On a personal basis, you understand. One or two of the rank-and-file types who are a little more open-minded about my contribution to crime prevention than their superiors. Word of the Bureau’s nickname got around.”
    “What else do you know about the case?”
    “That it’s going nowhere fast. No leads, no ideas, and the clock is ticking.”
    A fair summary, Tess had to admit. “You wouldn’t have met me and told me so much unless you had some intention of getting involved.”
    “That’s true.”
    “What do you want to contribute? A debriefing?” Tess considered the idea. “You may