John Sandford: Night Prey

He found two brooches, one a circle of pearls, the other with diamonds, a gold wedding band, and an engagement ring. The diamond brooch was excellent, the best thing she owned. He would have come for that alone. The engagement stone was all right, but not great. There were two gold bracelets and a watch, a woman's Rolex, gold and stainless steel.

No belt.

He put everything into a small black bag, then stood, stepping carefully around the empty trays, and went back through the bedroom. Slowly, slowly, he began opening the dresser drawers. The most likely place was the upper left drawer of the chest. The next most likely was the bottom drawer, depending on whether or not she was trying to hide it. He knew this from experience.

He took the upper drawer first, easing it out, his hands kneading through the half-seen clothing. Nothing hard…

The belt was in the bottom left-hand drawer, 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 bag, slipped his hand inside; the ether-soaked rag was cold against his skin.

With a smile on his face, he said, "Hey, what's a drink. C'mon. And hey, look at this…"

He turned as if to point something out to her; that put him behind her, a little to the right, and he wrapped her up and smashed the rag over her nose and mouth, and lifted her off the ground; she kicked, like a strangling squirrel, though from a certain angle, they might have been lovers in a passionate clutch; in any case, she only struggled for a moment…

Sara Jensen hit the snooze button on the alarm clock, rolled over, holding her pillow. She'd been smiling when the alarm went off. The smile faded only slowly: the peculiar nightmare hovered at the back of her mind. She couldn't quite recover it, but it was there, like a footstep in an attic, threatening…

She took a deep breath, willing herself to get up, not quite wanting to. Just before she woke, she'd been dreaming of Evan Hart. Hart was an attorney in the bond department. He wasn't exactly a romantic hero, but he was attractive, steady, and had a nice wit-though she suspected that he suppressed it, afraid that he might put her off. He didn't know her well. Not yet.

He had nice hands. Solid, long fingers that looked both strong and sensitive. He'd touched her once, on the nose, and she could almost feel it, lying here in her bed, a little warm. Hart was a widower, with a young daughter. His wife had died in an auto accident four years earlier. Since the accident, he'd been preoccupied with grief and with raising the child. The office gossip had him in two quick, nasty affairs with the wrong women. He was ready for the right one.

And he was hanging around.

Sara Jensen was divorced; the marriage had been a one-year mistake, right after college. No kids. But the breakup had been a shock. She'd thrown herself into her work, had started moving up. But now…

She smiled to herself. She was ready, she thought. Something permanent; something for a lifetime. She dozed, just for five minutes, dreaming of Evan Hart and his hands, a little bit warm, a little bit in love…

And the nightmare drifted back. A man with a cigarette at the corner of his mouth, watching her from the dark. She shrank away… and the alarm went off again. Sara touched her forehead, frowned, sat up, looked around the room, threw back the blankets with the sense that something was wrong.

"Hello?" she called out, but she knew she was alone. She went to use the bathroom, but paused in the doorway. Something… what?

The dream? She'd been sweating in the dream; she remembered wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. But that didn't seem right…

She flushed the toilet and headed for the front room with the image still in her mind: sweating, wiping her forehead…

Her jewelry box sat on the floor in the middle of the front room, the drawers dumped. She said aloud, "How'd that get there?"

For just a moment, she was confused. Had she taken it out last night, had she been sleepwalking? She took another step, saw a small mound of jewelry set to one side, all the cheap stuff.