“Not for long,” Lucas said. “The water’s draining through from the other end. I’ll block this up, the pipe’ll fill up…it won’t take long. Nobody will know. They’ll think you got away. It’ll almost be like you won—except you’ll be dead. And I’ll have a good laugh.”
Mail screamed, “Help…help me,” and Lucas could hear his hands and feet beating on the inside of the pipe. He was apparently trying to move backwards.
MAIL PUSHED HIMSELF away from the sound of the voice, aware now that the water under him was moving with him. Must be downhill. Maybe the pipe would fill up…must get out. Must get out…
He backed away, frantically, until his feet hit the muck he’d passed behind himself coming in: and he remembered. He kicked at it, couldn’t see it, couldn’t move. He was stuck. Ahead, there was only a small square of light at the mouth of the culvert. He crawled forward again, stopped, twisted around enough that he could free the pistol, and pushed it out ahead of him.
“Let me out,” he screamed. He fired the pistol. The muzzle blast and flash stunned and deafened him. He inched forward like a mole, in the water, fired again.
He couldn’t see much at all, just a thin rim of light. Davenport said something, but Mail couldn’t make it out. He simply lay in the deepening water, in the dark, with the pain in his stomach, the strange blindness in his eye, the world closing in on him. Davenport would bury him alive, he could feel the water rising. He thrashed and couldn’t move, couldn’t move; he had the gun, and without thinking, pushed it under his chin.
LUCAS HEARD THE muffled shot, and waited.
“John?”
He listened, heard nothing. The frantic beating had stopped. He looked back up the road, where the cops were still standing on the tops of their cars, looking the wrong way, into the cornfield. The shots from inside the culvert had been almost inaudible on the outside. Lucas started pulling the clumps of muck out of the pipe.
A little flow of water came out.
And then some blood.
And a clump of bloody, pulped flesh, floating like a child’s leaf-ship, on the thin stream of muddy water.
Lucas stood up, and with the toe of one ruined shoe, pushed the clumps of grass out of the mouth of the culvert, and climbed to the road.
“Hey.” He yelled at the cop on the closest car. When the cop turned, he pointed into the ditch and people began to run toward him.
36
SLOAN DROVE DOWN to the farm, gunless, suspended, afraid he was missing the action. He found a dozen cops on their hands and knees next to a culvert, and Lucas sitting on the steps of the tumble-down farmhouse.
“Need a ride, sweetheart?”
“I need a cigarette,” Lucas said. “I don’t know why I ever quit.”
Sloan told him about it as they headed back to town:
“Wolfe wouldn’t have anything to do with me, so I went with Franklin and Helen Manette. I sort of bullshitted her, being nice, and Helen opened her mouth and everything came out.”
“Won’t do much good,” Lucas said. “A court won’t take anything after the first time she asked for a lawyer, and we didn’t get one.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Sloan said. “I just wanted to know why she did it.”
“Money,” Lucas said. “Some way or another.”
Sloan nodded. “She knew all about Tower and Wolfe. Tower is in a lot worse financial shape than anybody knows. Almost everything is gone. His salary at the foundation has been cut, and they took a big equity loan on the house five years ago, and they’ve had a hard time making payments. The only thing they had going for them was the money from the trust—and there’s a provision in the deed of trust that if the trustees decided that there was no possibility of the last benefactor having children, then the trust would be dissolved and the last benefactor would get the whole thing. A lump sum. Right now, thirteen million dollars.”
“Jesus,” Lucas said. “That much?”
“Yep. The trust was in bonds. The trust company had to put aside enough income every year to cover inflation, and the rest of the income was divided up among the eligible people—Tower, Andi, and her two daughters. They were all getting about a hundred grand a year. If Andi and the two daughters were dead, and Tower pushed for it, the trust would be dissolved and he’d get the lump. And that’s what Helen Manette was looking for. She figured Tower was about to dump her. She figured she’d get half.”
“And she met Mail at the apartment?”
“Yeah. He asked about her name, said he’d had a doctor named Manette. He said some things that made her realize that he was the guy Andi had talked about a few times—the guy so crazy that he scared the life out of her. He gave her a name, Martin LaDoux. She found his phone number and started calling him.”
“We could have seen it,” Lucas said.
“We would have,” Sloan said. “But man, it’s only been five days. Not a whole five days, yet.”
“Seems like a century,” Lucas said.
A moment later, Sloan said, “You know what she asked me?”
“What?”
“If her helping us would qualify for Dunn’s reward money…”
Halfway back, they got a call from the chief’s secretary, saying Roux was on the way to the hospital. She wanted Lucas and Sloan to stop by. When they arrived, the hospital’s turnout was clogged with cars.
Sloan looked him over. “Maybe I oughta drop you at emergency,” he said. “You look like shit.”
“I’m all right,” Lucas said, getting out of the car. His shoes were ruined, his suit pants, still wet, clung to his legs. His underwear and shirt, both soaked, felt like they were full of sand. His tie was a wet, twisted wreck; he hadn’t shaved.
Sloan looked him over. “Your suit coat looks nice,” he said.
ROUX SAW HIM first, hurried down the tile hallway, and caught him in her arms with a powerful hug. “Jesus, you got them back. I never would have believed it.”
Dunn was there, pounding him on the back. “Jesus Christ, all of them.” His face was luminous.
“Easy,” Lucas said. “How’s Genevieve?”
“Exposure,” Dunn said, his face going dark. “She wouldn’t have lasted the rest of the day. And she may have nerve damage in her legs. Maybe not too serious, it’s too soon to tell. But the way she was caught up in the coat, the nerves were all pinched up…”
“Andi and Grace?”
Dunn looked at the floor, and then away. “Physically, they’ll be okay; psychologically, they’re in terrible shape. Andi is just…just rambling. God, I don’t know…” And he turned and walked away without another word, back toward a cluster of doctors.
“You heard about Helen Manette?” Lucas asked Roux.
“From Franklin,” she said. She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. We gotta talk with everybody from the state’s attorney’s office. We’re gonna arrest her, but if we ever get her in court, I just don’t know. But she’s not our biggest problem.”
Lucas nodded. “Wolfe?”
“Yeah. We’re meeting with her and her lawyer.” Roux looked at her watch. “In about forty-five minutes. You better be around, in case I need you.”
“I’d hoped she’d go away, on her own,” Lucas said.
“She hasn’t,” Roux said grimly.
There was a buzz of noise at the hospital, and Lucas looked down the hall. The mayor pushed through, and Roux said, “I gotta go. Stick close to your office.”
“Sure,” Lucas said.
ROUX CALLED AN hour later, as Lucas sat in his office, talking with Sloan and Del. “You better come down.”
The chief’s secretary waved him through, saying, “They’re waiting,” and “God, that was great this morning. You’re my hero.”
“Yeah, but for how long?” Lucas asked.
“Rest of the week,” she promised.
Nancy Wolfe, a loose-fleshed man with freckles and shiny red hair, Lester, and Rose Marie Roux faced each other in a ten
se rectangle around Roux’s desk. The red-haired man’s hands were steepled, and he wore a careful gray suit with a gold lapel pin. A lawyer, Lucas thought.
Roux pointed at an empty chair next to Lester. “Sit down. We’re trying to work out what happened this morning.”
“You know what happened,” Wolfe snapped. She looked across the desk at Lucas, her eyes on fire. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“What do you want?” Lucas asked.
“I want you out,” she said. “I’ll reserve the right to go to court no matter what happens, but I want you out now.”
“We saved your partner’s life,” Lucas said.
“You should have found another way to do it…”
“There was no time.”
“…without…violating me.”
Lucas shook his head. “No time.”
“You should have made some,” Wolfe said.
Rose Marie cleared her throat. “Lucas will be staying. I won’t fire him. In fact, I’m putting him in for a commendation. I’m sorry that you were inconvenienced.”
“Inconvenienced?” Wolfe shrilled. “I was strip-searched and given these prison clothes and they made me sit there while they shouted at me”—her lip trembled—“and they wouldn’t let me call anybody, a lawyer, or anybody.”
“Rose Marie, we’re talking about a lot of money,” the lawyer said, dryly. “Guys have done a lot less than Davenport, to people who deserved it a lot more, and they’ve been hammered. People are tired of this department, the way it handles people. You lose a million, two million, five million—and that’s possible, in this case—and you’ll be out of here. If you fire Davenport, at least it’ll be a sign that you disapprove.”
Rose Marie was shaking her head, and said, “Won’t do it.”
The lawyer nodded at Wolfe and said, “Well, that’s it, then.”
Wolfe gathered up her purse. “We’re definitely going ahead.”
Lester said, out of nowhere, “You can go to court, but I don’t think we’ll lose. We had some good reasons to interview Dr. Wolfe.”
Lucas glanced at Lester, uncertainly, then looked at Roux, who raised her eyebrows. She didn’t know what Lester was talking about, either.
The lawyer, who had dropped his hands to his lap when he was talking about the five million, resteepled his fingers, then peeked at Lester from behind them. “I know what you’re thinking. And if the jury was deciding right this minute, you might get away with it. Ms. Manette and her daughters are in the hospital, the TV people are going crazy, there’d be a lot of sympathy for what Chief Davenport did. But when we get to court, six months from now, or a year from now? You’ll lose. And Ms. Wolfe has expressed a determination to follow up on this.”
Lester tried to break in during the speech, and finally got in with, “That’s not what I’m thinking. I’m not talking about the Manette case at all.”
The lawyer stopped and asked, “Then what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about William Charles Aakers and Carlos Neroda Sonches,” Lester said. “Two of Dr. Wolfe’s patients…and Andi Manette’s. We were planning to ask Dr. Wolfe about these cases when Chief Davenport found out where the suspect Mail was hiding, and he had to leave. But we will come back to Dr. Wolfe on these…”
He had two manila folders in his hands. They were empty, but a cursive feminine handwriting on the tabs said, Aakers and Sonches. He passed the folders to the lawyer.
“What are these?” the redhead asked, looking at Wolfe.
“Two patients,” she hissed. “This man is trying to blackmail me.”
“I’m not trying to do anything of the sort,” Lester said. “The contents of these two files have been temporarily misplaced, due to some bureaucratic confusion with the other files in the case, but we’ll find them and continue our evaluation. We feel that there might well be cause for prosecution.”
“What?” the attorney asked. He was looking at Lucas.
Lucas shrugged, and Lester said, “Your client has been treating child molesters without informing the required law enforcement officials. It’s all in the records. And we’ll find these records. I’m gonna tear the department to pieces if I have to.”
Roux leaned back in her chair; Lester looked intent, and Lucas looked away.
After a moment, Wolfe said, “You fuckers.”
“BLACKMAIL,” WEATHER SAID that night. She was eating the back end of a lobster.
“I suppose,” Lucas said. “She reserved the right to do whatever she wanted, but she won’t do anything. She’ll let it go.”
“I don’t think I approve,” Weather said.
“I could burn the papers, I suppose—if I could find them,” Lucas said. “Then we could call her up, tell her we’re sorry, and let her sue.”
“You were pretty rough with her.”
“Shit happens.” Lucas yawned, stretched, and smiled. “Just like the bumper sticker says.”
“ARE YOU OKAY?” she asked. They’d gone into the living room and parked on the couch, Weather leaning back with her head on his shoulder.
“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m so tired.”
“I heard a cop was shot, that there had been a shooting, a surgical tech told me…” The words were tumbling out in an uncontrolled spate, and her body tensed against him. “I couldn’t believe it, I called Phil Orris over at Ramsey, you remember him, the orthopod…”
“Yeah.”
“He said, ‘No, no, it’s not Lucas, it’s a woman.’ I was like, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I was so glad this poor woman was shot, that it wasn’t you.”
“She’s kind of messed up, Sherrill is,” Lucas said. “The bone’s broken.”
“Better than you getting shot,” she said. “You’ve been shot enough.”
They sat quietly for a second, then Lucas said, “I think we ought to get married.”
She went absolutely still against him, and a second later, said, “So do I.”
“I’ve got a ring for you,” he said.
“I know, it’s been driving everybody crazy,” she said.
He grinned, but she couldn’t see it. She was still facing away, the top of her head just under his nose.
“Why don’t you go sit in the tub?” she suggested. “Then get in bed. You could use about fifteen hours of sleep.”
“All right. Here, move away.” He pushed her off a bit, and dug in his pocket, found the ring. “I could never think of what to tell you when I gave it to you,” he said. “Except, I love you.”
She put it on her finger, and it fit. “You could go on for a while,” she said. “But that’s certainly an excellent start.”
LUCAS SAT IN the tub for fifteen minutes, but he was never any good at relaxing in hot water. He got out, toweled off, put on a robe, and wandered through the house, looking for Weather, to say good night. He found her on the telephone, and heard her say, “Guess what?”
She was telling friends about the proposal, about the ring. He watched her for a moment, and her face was luminous, like Dunn’s had been at the hospital, glowing with a light of its own.
He felt a sudden pang of fear: the moment was too perfect to last. He shook it off, walked into the kitchen, touched her hair, her cheek, kissed her chin.
“Taking a nap,” he said.
She dropped the phone to her lap. “Del is pissed,” she said. “He had until noon today, in the proposal pool. Some guy named Wood won six hundred and twenty dollars.”
Lucas grinned. “Pretty romantic, huh?”
“Go to bed,” she said. He walked back toward the bedroom, stopped, and listened.
He heard her punch new numbers into the phone, and heard her say again, “Guess what?”
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Ch
apter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
“A thriller that will make your hair stand on end. The stakes are high, the characters rich, the action relentless . . . the story will clamp down like a bear trap on all who open its covers.”—Publishers Weekly
SUDDEN PREY
Lucas Davenport knows why people kill. Some do it for thrills. Some do it for profit. But when Davenport’s team guns down two bank robbers in the middle of a heist, he falls prey to the purest, simplest criminal motivation: revenge.
“You’ll probably read it in one big gulp.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Davenport . . . is an intelligent, mesmerizing hero.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“A wonderful novel peopled with unforgettable characters. The tension never stops.”
—The Orange County Register
“Fans of previous Sandford novels will be thrilled.”
—Booklist
“Sudden Prey delivers!” —Omaha World-Herald
Praise for John Sandford’s Prey novels
“Relentlessly swift . . . genuinely suspenseful . . . excellent.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Sandford is a writer in control of his craft.”
—Chicago Sun-Times