Sudden Prey

DISTANCE WAS sixty-two feet. In two one-hundredths of a second, the slug exploded from the barrel and through LaChaise’s head, his skull blowing up like a blood-filled pumpkin.
    LaChaise never sensed, never knew death was on the way. He was there one instant, moving the muzzle, ready to quit, even thinking about jail life; in the next instant, he was gone, turned off, falling.
     
     
     
    WEATHER FELT THE muzzle move, and the next instant, she was on the floor, blind. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear, she was covered with something—she was covered with blood, flesh, brains. She tried to get to her feet but slipped and fell heavily, tried to get up, then Lucas was there, picking her up, and she began to scream . . .
    And to push him away.

30
    THREE DOCTORS, PHYSICIANS and friends, bent over Weather, trying to talk with her. She was disoriented, physically and psychologically. The explosion of blood, bone and brain had done something to her. The doctors were talking about sedatives.
    “Shock,” one of the cops said to Lucas. The doctors had pushed Lucas away—his presence seemed to make her worse. “We’ll get her cleaned up, get her calmed down, then you can see her,” they said.
    He went reluctantly, watching from the back of the room. Roux showed up, looked at the body, talked to the kid from Iowa, then came over to see Lucas.
    “So it’s done,” she said. “Is Weather all right?”
    “She’s shook up,” Lucas said. “She freaked when we shot LaChaise.”
    “Well, look at her,” Roux said quietly. “She looks like she was literally in a blood bath. A bath of blood.”
    “Yeah, I just . . . I don’t know. I did right, I think.”
    Roux nodded: “You did right.” She asked, “Did you talk to Dewey?”
    Dewey was the shooter. Lucas looked across the room at the Iowa kid, who had the rifle cradled in his left arm, like a pheasant hunter with a shotgun. He was chatting pleasantly with the team leader. “Never had a chance,” Lucas said. “I need to thank him.”
    Roux said, “He scares the shit out of me. He seems to think the whole thing is very interesting. Can’t wait to tell his folks. But he doesn’t seem to feel a thing about actually killing somebody.”
    Lucas nodded, shrugged, turned back toward Weather. “Jesus, I hope . . .” He shook his head. “She acts like she hates me.”
     
     
     
    THE PHONE IN his pocket rang and Lucas fumbled for it. Roux said, “What about Darling?”
    “We’ve got some guys trying to find her over at the dome.” Lucas got the phone out—his own phone. The ringing continued in his pocket. “Uh-oh,” he said, as he dug out the second phone. “This could be bad news.”
    He turned the phone on and said, “Yes?”
    “This is Johnson, over at U.S. West.”
    “What’d you get?”
    “The phone was registered to a Sybil Guhl, she’s a real-estate broker in Arden Hills. There were forty-two calls in the last few days, both businesses and private phones . . .”
    “Private phones,” Lucas said.
    “There were calls to a Daymon Harp residence in Minneapolis,” Johnson said in his fussy corporate voice. “To an Andrew Stadic residence . . .”
    “Oh, shit,” Lucas said.
    “Beg pardon?”
    “How many calls to Stadic?”
    “Uh . . . nine. That was the most frequently called personal phone—actually, it’s another cellular.”
    “Who else?”
    There were other calls, but they could be discounted. Lucas said “Thanks,” hung up and looked at Roux. “Andy Stadic,” he said. “He’s the guy.”
    “Damnit.” She brushed her hand across her eyes, as though that would make it go away. “Let’s get a team out to his house.”
    “He’s not at his house,” Lucas said, backing away, heading toward the elevators. He looked one last time at Weather, sitting head down on the cart, the doctors crouched around her. He should stay; but he’d go. “He’s leading the hunt for Sandy Darling.”
     
     
     
    SANDY HEARD THE knot of cops coming up behind her. She needed to talk to somebody on a phone before she turned herself in. One of the cops—maybe one of those behind her, maybe not—would have a face that matched the photos in her pocket.
    If he was behind her, she might not get a chance to talk. When she heard the cops calling back and forth, she thought about running over to the dome, but the street was too wide, too open, and they were too close. She’d been leaving tracks, but there’d been no way to avoid that. Now she