John Sandford: Mind prey

"Sure, how are you?" Roux said. "I didn't know you and Tower were friends."

"Um, he asked me to take a consultive role," Enright said. He looked as though he were waxed in the morning.

"Good," said Roux, nodding dismissively. "Is Tower around?"

"In here," Enright said. He looked at Lucas. "And you're…"

"Lucas Davenport."

"Of course. This way."

"Lawyer," Roux muttered, as Enright started into the depths of the house. Lucas could see the light glittering from his hair. "Gofer."

The house was high-style Prairie, with deep Oriental carpets setting off the arts-and-crafts furniture. A touch of deco added glamour, and a definite deco taste was reflected in the thirties art prints. Lucas knew nothing of decoration or art, but the smell of money seeped from the walls. That he recognized.

Enright led them to a sprawling center room, with two interlocking groups of couches and chairs. Three men in suits were standing, talking. Two well-dressed women sat on chairs facing each other. They all had the expectant air of a group waiting for their picture to be taken.

"Rose Marie…" Tower Manette walked toward them. He was a tall man with fine, high cheekbones and a trademark shock of white hair falling over wooly-bear white eyebrows. Another man, tanned, solid, tight-jawed, Lucas knew as a senior agent with the Minneapolis office of the FBI. He nodded and Lucas nodded back. The third man was Danny Kupicek, an intelligence cop who had worked for Lucas on special investigations. He raised a hand and said, "Chiefs."

The two women were unfamiliar.

"Thanks for coming," Manette said. He was thinner than Lucas remembered from seeing him on television, and paler, but there was a quick aggressive flash in his eyes. His suit was French-cut but conservative, showing his narrow waist, and his tie might have been chosen by a French president: the look of a ladies' man.

But the corner of his mouth trembled when he reached out to Roux, and when he shook hands with Lucas, his hand felt cool and delicate; the skin was loose and heavily veined. "And Lucas Davenport, I've heard about you for years. Is there any more news? Why don't we step into the library; I'll be right back, folks."

The library was a small rectangular room stuffed with leather-bound books, tan, oxblood, green covers stamped with gold. They all came in sets: great works, great thoughts, great ideas, great battles, great men.

"Great library," Lucas said.

"Thank you," Tower said. "Is there anything new?"

"There have been some further… disturbing developments," Roux said.

Tower turned his head away, as though his face were about to be slapped. "That is…?"

Roux nodded at Lucas, and Lucas said, "I just got back from the school. We found one of your daughter's shoes in the parking lot, under her car, out of the rain. There was blood on it. We've got her blood type from medical school, so we should be able to tell fairly quickly if it's her blood. If it is hers, she was probably bleeding fairly heavily-but that could be from a blow to the nose or a cut lip, or even a small scalp wound. They all bleed profusely… But there was some blood. Witnesses also suggest that your daughter and her younger daughter, Genevieve…"

"Yes, Gen," Manette said weakly.

"… apparently were bleeding after the assault, when they were seen in the back of the kidnapper's van. But we've also found that the kidnapper may have tried to disguise his van by painting it with some kind of red water-soluble paint, so that may be what was seen on your daughter. We don't know about that."

"Oh, God." Manette's voice came out as a croak: the emotion was real.

"This could turn out badly," Roux said. "We're hoping it won't, but you've got to be ready."

"There must be something I can do," Manette said. "Do you think a reward? An appeal?"

"We could talk about a reward," Roux said. "But we should wait awhile, see if anyone calls asking for ransom."

"Do you have any ideas-anything at all-about what might be going on?" Lucas asked. "Anybody who might want to get at you, or at Miz Manette?"

"No…" But he said it slowly, as if he had to think about it. "Why?"

"She may have been stalked. This doesn't look like a spontaneous attack," Lucas said. "But there's an element of craziness about it, too. All kinds of things could've gone wrong. I mean, he kidnapped three people in broad daylight and got away with it."

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Davenport," Manette said. He took three shaky steps to an overstuffed library chair and sat down. "I've got more enemies than most men. There must be several dozen people in this state who genuinely detest me-people who blame me for destroying their careers, their prospects, and probably their families. That's politics. It's unfortunate, but that's what happens when your side loses in a political contest. You lose. So there are people out there…"

"It doesn't feel political," Roux said. Lucas noticed that she'd taken a cigarette out of a pocket and was rolling it, unlit, in her left hand.

Manette nodded. "I agree. As crazy as some of those people may be, I don't think this kind of thing would ever occur to them."

Lucas said, "There's always the possibility…"

Roux looked at him, "Political people always leave themselves escape hatches. With this, there's no escape hatch. Even if he just dropped them off on the corner, he'd be looking at years in prison for the kidnapping. A political mind wouldn't do that."

"Unless he was nuts," Lucas said.

Roux nodded, and looked at Manette and said, "There is that possibility."

"Which brings us to your daughter's psychiatric practice," Lucas said to Manette. "We need access to her records."

"The woman on the couch"-Manette tipped his head toward the living room-"the younger one, is Andi's partner, Nancy Wolfe. I'll talk to her."

"We'd like to start as soon as we can," Lucas said. "Tomorrow morning."

"I hope it's a kidnapping," Manette said. "I hope it's for profit-I don't like to think of some nut taking them."

"How about George Dunn?" Lucas asked. "He says he was in his car during the attack. No witnesses."

"That sonofabitch," Manette said. He pushed himself out of the chair and took a quick turn around the room and made a sound like a clog's growl. "He's a goddamn psycho. I didn't think before tonight that he'd do anything to hurt Andi or the girls, but now… I don't know."

"You think he might?"

"He's a cold-hearted sonofabitch," Manette said. "He could do anything."

They talked about the case for a few more minutes, then the two women came to the door and looked inside. "Tower? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said.

The women stepped inside. The younger of the two, Nancy Wolfe, was a slender, well-tanned woman. She wore a soft woollen dress, but no jewelry or makeup, and her auburn hair showed a few threads of gray. Speaking to Manette, she said, "You need some quiet. I'm telling you that as an M.D., not as a psychiatrist."

The other woman was paler, older, with a loose, jowly face touched expertly with rouge. She nodded, stepped closer to Manette, and took his arm. "Just come on upstairs, Tower. Even if you can't sleep, you could lie down…"

"I don't go to bed until two o'clock in the morning," Manette said irritably. "There's no point in going up now."

"But it's been exhausting," the woman said. She seemed to be talking about herself, and Lucas realized that she must be Manette's wife. She spoke to Roux: "Tower's under a lot of stress, and he's had health problems."

"We wanted him to know that we're doing everything we can," Roux said. She looked back at Manette. "I've assigned Lucas to oversee the investigation."

"Thank you," Manette said. And to Lucas: "Anything you need, anybody that I know, that you want to talk to, just call. And let me know about that reward, if it would be useful."