John Sandford - Sudden prey

''Andy…''

That was Davenport? He popped up, gun in hand, and saw Lucas again, fired quickly, saw Lucas duck, go down.

He looked up. Christ, the window was right there. Blood on his hand, on his neck, blood on everything, slippery…

He went straight up, leaping, caught the window and hauled himself up, heard the cops yelling, ''Andy, Andy, Andy,'' a regular football cheer, doing the wave for

Andy Stadic.

He hauled himself up, hands slippery with blood…

Sandy was there, looking down at him.

• • •

SANDY HEARD HIM SCRABBLING AT THE BOOTH, SAW HIS hand catch the edge, saw him fall. There were more shots, and then he was up again, bullet-headed, like a gorilla, like King Kong, climbing up the outside of the booth.

Back home, Sandy had always been the one who split wood for the wood stove. She liked doing it, feeling the muscles work.

Now here was this blood-covered man coming to kill her. A man she didn't know, with a gun, crawling up the wall…

She swung the steel cylinder with everything she had: for Elmore, for the times

Martin and LaChaise had knocked her down, for the fear during the ledge walk, for all the blood. She swung the pipe like a wood-splitting maul.

STADIC LOOKED UP. SAW IT COMING. HAD JUST enough time left in the world to let go of the window.

LUCAS WAS ON HIS KNEES, HIS GUN COMING UP, THINKING, Vest; he's wearing a vest. ..

The gunsight tracked up Stadic's back to his neck, just as Stadic's head went over the lip of the window, and Sandy loomed in front of him. Lucas snapped the barrel upright, afraid to touch off the shot…

He saw the steel cylinder come down.

Heard the crack.

Saw Stadic drop like a rag.

THERE WAS NO SOUND IN THE STADIUM. EVERYTHING had stopped: the workmen, the running cops. Lucas. Sandy. Stadic's body upside-down in the blue chairs.

After a long, long beat, the world started again. ''You can come down,'' Lucas said to Sandy as the other cops ran toward them. ''You'll be all right now.''

SANDY DARLING LAY IN THE HOSPITAL BED, TIRED, dinged up, but not seriously injured. Her most pressing problem was her left foot, which was cuffed to the bed frame. She could sit up, she could move, but she couldn't roll over. The simple presence of the cuff gave her the almost uncontrollable urge to roll, and a powerful sense of claustrophobia when she couldn't.

She'd spoken to a lawyer. He said the Hennepin County District Attorney might come up with a charge, but there wasn't a case if what she said was true. She was a victim, not a perpetrator.

Sandy had told the truth, generally, with a few critical lies. She hadn't seen them, she said, until Butters came to get her, to patch up LaChaise. After

Butters showed up, she hadn't been free to leave. She'd tried to get free every way she could.

There remained the problem of LaChaise's fingerprints and other traces in the

Airstream trailer: but nobody but Sandy knew he'd been there-nobody alive-and probably not more than five other people in the world were aware of the

Airstream. If they did find the trailer, and bothered to fingerprint it, she could attribute any cooperation to Elmore. Otherwise, when she got out, she'd wait a few days, and then go out to the trailer with cleaning rags and a bucket of detergent.

And she should get out-in a couple of days, with any luck, the lawyer said.

She turned on her side, felt the tug of the cuff and looked out the window. She had a view of a snow-covered rooftop and a hundred yards of anonymous street.

Elmore. Elmore would be the problem, she thought. The guilt she felt about

Elmore was deeper, more intractable than she would have believed. He haunted her thoughts, in death, the way he never had in life.

She'd babbled something about it to a doctor. The doctor told her that grief was natural, would stay, but could be borne and would eventually fade.

Maybe, maybe not.

God, if I can only get out…

She needed to be outside, working with the horses. This was a pretty time of year, if you liked the north woods, the white fences of the training rings, the dark trees against the snow.

The horses would be out in it now, running over the hillside, the blankets flowing over their backs, gouts of steam snorting from their nostrils.

Sandy Darling shut her eyes and counted horses.

THE PLAINCLOTHES GUYS GATHERED IN HOMICIDE, where there really wasn't enough space, like mourners at a wake, muttering among themselves. Much of the talk was about the Iowa boy and his rifle.

And Stadic, of course.

Stadic dead was better than Stadic alive, everybody agreed on that. But already, the amateur lawyers were talking: he'dnever been found guilty in a court of law.

What would happen to his benefits? He had an ex-wife and kid, would they get them?

''Andy was a greedy sonofabitch, he was always bitchin' about not havin' enough, not makin' enough,'' Loring said. ''All the guy ever thought about was money.

That's why his old lady split. But I never thought he'd…''

Lester came in and cleared his throat and said, ''Listen up, everybody. We're all done. Unless you're on the schedule or you're making a statement, go home.

Finish your Christmas shopping. And get the goddamn overtime forms in, and anybody who wants comp time instead of money, come see me, and I will personally kiss you on the ass and shake your hand…''

''At the same time?''

A little laughter.

A detective from sex said, ''What about Stadic?''

''What about him?'' Lester asked.

''I mean… we were talking… what's gonna happen?''

Lester said, ''Aw, shit, let's not get into that. We got a long way to go with the county attorney.''

''What about Harp?'' asked a drug guy.

''We're looking for Mr. Harp,'' Lester said. ''And pay attention here: if anybody except the chief or the mayor talks to the press about Andy Stadic, without checking with us first, well, that's your First Amendment right, but we will cut your nuts off with a sharpened screwdriver.''

''Hey, are we gonna be on Cops?…''

SLOAN AND SHERRILL FOUND LUCAS SITTING IN AWAITING room at the University

Hospitals, looking at a sheaf of papers in a manila file.

Sherrill stuck her head in and said, ''What's happening, dude?''

Lucas closed the file and said, ''Just… hanging out.''

Taking that as permission to come in, they dropped into chairs facing him, and

Sloan asked, ''Have you seen Weather?''

''She should be waking up,'' Lucas said. ''I'm waiting to go in.''

''Has she said anything to anybody?'' Sloan asked.

''Yeah, but she's disoriented,'' Lucas said. ''She really seems. .. hurt. I think I really hurt her.''

Sloan shook his head: ''You didn't hurt her. You did what you had to.''

Sherrill, exasperated, said, ''C'mon, Sloan, that's not gonna help.''

''What?''

''Cliche ґs,'' Sherrill said. She turned to Lucas. ''Maybe you did hurt her. You ought to think about that.''

''Aw, Jesus,'' Sloan groaned.

''The problem that's got me is, it's my fault,'' Lucas said. ''I didn't see

Stadic-I should have seen him. If I'd seen Stadic, we would've had them all.''

Sloan was irritated: ''C'mon, Lucas, how could you have seen Stadic? He saved your life with Butters.''

Lucas waved him off: ''You remember when we were getting ready to raid poor old

Arne Palin? We were talking at the door, you and me and Franklin? And Lester was there, and Roux? Stadic came in, and Franklin said something like, he wanted to sneak back to his place to pick up some clothes for his wife. An hour later, he was ambushed.''

''Lucas…''

''Listen, after he was ambushed, I ran over to the hospital, and I kept thinking, how could they know he was coming? How could they know? They couldn't just hide outside his house twenty-four hours a day, waiting for him to comealong. Why would they? We'd had it on TV that everybody was safe in the hotel…''