Silent Prey Read Free Page A

jogging . . . .
    Lucas shifted into neutral, pulled the brake, popped the door and swiveled in the seat, letting his feet fall on the shoulder of the road.
    “Davenport, God damn it, I thought this was your piece of shit,” Larsen said, thumping the Porsche’s roof. “Everybody’s looking for your ass . . . .”
    “What . . . ?”
    “Fuckin’ Bekker blew out of the government center. He’s knocked down two people so far.”
    “What?” Lucas Davenport: deep summer tan, jagged white scar crossing his eyebrow, khaki short-sleevedshirt, jeans, gym shoes. A surge of adrenaline almost took his breath away.
    “Two of your buddies are laying up at your place. They think he might be coming for you,” Larsen said. He was a large man who kept hitching up his belt, and peering around, as though he might spot Bekker sneaking through a roadside ditch.
    Lucas: “I better get my ass down there . . . .”
    “Go.” Larsen thumped the top of the car again.
    Back on the highway, Lucas picked up the car phone and poked in the direct-dial number for the Minneapolis cops. He was vaguely pleased with himself: he didn’t need the phone, rarely used it. He’d installed it the week after he’d bought the gold-and-steel Rolex that circled his wrist—two useless symbols of his freedom from the Minneapolis Police Department. Symbols that he was doing what every cop supposedly wanted to do, to go out on his own, to make it. And now the business was snaking off in new directions, away from games, into computer simulations of police tactical problems. Davenport Games & Simulations. With the growing sales, he might have to rent an office.
    The switchboard operator said, “Minneapolis.”
    “Gimme Harmon Anderson,” Lucas said.
    “Is that you, Lucas?” the operator asked. Melissa Yellow Bear.
    “Yeah.” He grinned. Somebody remembered.
    “Harmon’s been waiting. Are you at home?”
    “No, I’m in my car.”
    “You heard what happened?” Yellow Bear was breathless.
    “Yes.”
    “You take care, honey. I’ll switch you over . . . .”
    A moment later, Anderson came on, and said withoutpreamble, “Del and Sloan are at your place. Sloan got the key from your neighbor, but they’re wasting their time. He won’t be coming after this long. It’s been three hours.”
    “How about Del’s place? He and Bekker are relatives of some kind.”
    “We’ve got a couple of guys there, too, but he’s hiding somewhere. He won’t be out, not now.”
    “How did he—”
    “Go on home and Sloan can fill you in,” Anderson said, interrupting. “I gotta go. This goddamn place is a madhouse.”
    And he was gone. Police work to do, no time for civilians. Lucas got off at University Avenue, took it to Vandalia, across I-94 and down Cretin, then over to the tree-shaded river road. Brooding. No time for Davenport.
    Feeling sorry for himself, knowing it.
    Two blocks before he got to the house, he slowed, watching, then turned a block early. The neighborhood offered few places to hide, other than inside the houses. The yards were open, tree-filled, burning with color: crabapple blossoms and lines of tulips, banks of iris, pink peonies and brilliant yellow daffodils, and the odd patch of buttery dandelions that had somehow escaped the yard-service sprayers. The day was warm, and people were working in their yards or on their houses; a couple of kids in shorts shot baskets at a garage-mounted hoop. Bekker couldn’t hide in the open yards, and breaking into a house would be tough. Too many people around. He turned a corner and idled down toward his house.
    Lucas lived in what a real estate woman had once called a soft rambler: stone and clapboard, a fireplace, big trees, two-car garage. At the end of the asphalt drive, he slowed, punched the garage-door opener, and waitedat the end of the driveway until the door was all the way up. A curtain moved in the front room.
    When Lucas pulled into the garage, Sloan was waiting in the