Night Prey Read Free Page A

at the back, under some winter woolens. So she was a bit wary. He drew it out, hefting it, and turned back toward Sara Jensen. She had a firm chin, but her mouth had gone slightly slack. Her breasts were round and prominent, her hips substantial. She’d be a big woman. Not fat, just big.
    Belt in his hands, Koop started to move away, stopped. He’d seen the bottle on the dressing table, and ignored it as he always ignored them. But this time . . . He reached back and picked it up. Her perfume. He started for the door again and almost stumbled: he wasn’t watching the route, he was watching the woman, spread right there, an arm’s length away, his breath coming hard.
    Koop stopped. Fumbled for a moment, folding the belt, slipped it into his pocket. Took a step away, looked down again. White face, round cheek, dark eyebrows. Hair splayed back.
    Without thinking, without even knowing what he was doing—shocking himself, recoiling inside—Koop stepped beside the bed, bent over her, and lightly, gently, dragged his tongue over her forehead. . . .

    HARRIET WANNEMAKER WAS frankly interested in a drink at McClellan’s: she had color in her face, the warmth of excitement. She’d meet him there, the slightly dangerous man with the mossy red beard.
    He left before she did. His nerves were up now. He hadn’t made a move yet, he was still okay, nothing to worry about. Had anybody noticed them talking? He didn’t think so. She was so colorless, who cared? In a few minutes . . .
    The pressure was a physical thing, a heaviness in his gut, an inflated feeling in his chest, a pain in the back of his neck. He thought about heading home, ditching the woman. But he wouldn’t. There was another pressure, a more demanding one. His hand trembled on the steering wheel. He parked the truck on Sixth, on the hill, opened the door. Took a nervous breath. Still time to leave . . .
    He fished under the seat, found the can of ether and the plastic bag with the rag. He opened the can, poured it quickly into the bag, and capped the can. The smell of the ether was nauseating, but it dissipated in a second. In the sealed bag, it quickly soaked into the rag. Where was she?
    She came a few seconds later, parked down the hill from him, behind the truck, spent a moment in the car, primping. A beer sign in McClellan’s side window, flickering with a bad bulb, was the biggest light around, up at the top of the hill. He could still back out. . . .
    No. Do it.

    SARA JENSEN HAD tasted of perspiration and perfume . . . tasted good.
    Sara moved when he licked her, and he stepped back, stepped away, toward the door . . . and stopped. She said something, a nonsense syllable, and he stepped quickly but silently out the door to his shoes: not quite running, but his heart was hammering. He slipped the shoes on, picked up his bag.
    And stopped again. The key to cat burglary was simple: go slow. If it seems like you might be getting in trouble, go slower. And if things get really bad, run like hell. Koop collected himself. No point in running if she wasn’t waking up, no sense in panic—but he was thinking asshole asshole asshole.
    But she wasn’t coming. She’d gone back down again, down into sleep; and though Koop couldn’t see it—he was leaving the apartment, slowly closing the door behind himself—the line of saliva on her forehead glistened in the moonlight, cool on her skin as it evaporated.
     
     
     
    KOOP SLIPPED THE plastic bag in his coat pocket, stepped to the back of his truck, and popped the camper door.
    Heart beating hard now. . . .
    “Hi,” she called. Fifteen feet away. Blushing? “I wasn’t sure you could make it.”
    She was afraid he’d ditch her. He almost had. She was smiling, shy, maybe a little afraid but more afraid of loneliness. . . .
    Nobody around. . . .
    Now it had him. A darkness moved on him—literally a darkness, a kind of fog, an anger that seemed to spring up on its own, like a vagrant wind. He unrolled the plastic