John Sandford - Field of Prey

The lights were still on at midnight, but fifteen minutes later, were off. He wanted her a little groggy, so he gave her another fifteen minutes to get settled in bed, had one last beer, paid, and walked out of the bar.

He took his time walking down to the apartment. He’d done this nearly two dozen times, but was still jumpy, waiting for a cop car to turn the corner. He got to the Suburban, pulled on a jacket, checked the pockets: tape, plastic gloves, glass cutter and cutter guide, potato. The cutter guide was simply a piece of cardboard with a fist-sized circle cut out of it.

The tape had been pre-pulled, the end of it folded over, so he wouldn’t have to scratch around for the end. He took a breath, started the truck, drove around the block, and parked behind Mattsson’s SUV. Sat for a moment, sticking two pieces of tape across the top and bottom of the glass cutting guide, checked the block again, then got out, eased the truck door shut, and walked over to her door.

He stuck the guide to the door’s window, adjacent to the handle inside, and then ran the glass cutter around the inside of the cut-out circle of the guide. The cut was gritty, but quiet: he could feel the cut with his fingers, but he couldn’t hear it.

When he’d run around the initial groove a half dozen times, he went back to the truck and dropped the cutter guide and the cutter into the backseat. Another check, and he pulled on heavy plastic gloves, then stepped back to the door with the roll of tape. He stuck a strip of the tape inside the scored circle, and stuck the other end to the back of the glove on his right hand. With his left thumb, he put pressure on the glass circle, pushed, pushed, heard it crack, and then it popped. The tape kept it from falling inside and shattering. He fished it back outside, walked over to his truck, got in, and drove away.

A block down the street, he pulled over again, dumped all the tools except the thin gloves, the tape roll, a flashlight, the burner, and the potato into the back, and watched the windows in Mattsson’s apartment. No lights. He waited, slumped in the front seat, and then a cop car did turn the corner, and rolled slowly down the block, past him, past Mattsson’s, without slowing, to a stoplight. The car turned right on red, and rolled away. .

R-A let out a breath.

Waited another ten minutes, then drove around the block again, looking for cops, and rolled to a quiet stop behind Mattsson’s SUV. Checked the block. Pulled on the moccasins and gloves. Got out, walked over to the door, stuck his hand inside, turned the knob. The door popped open. He listened, but expected no alarm, and didn’t get one.

The moccasins were good, and he climbed the stairs about as quietly as humanly possible, though he still created the occasional creak. He heard nothing from Mattsson’s apartment. Got to the top, and found four doors. He would have had no idea which one was hers, except that three of them had no number, and the fourth showed the numeral 1.

Another deep breath, a long listen, and he took the cell phone and potato from his jacket, slipped the potato on his right hand, and made the call.

Mattsson’s eyes clicked open. Her cell phone was a foot from her head, on the end table, waiting for the killer’s next call.

She picked it up and looked at the screen, which had nothing but an unfamiliar number. She picked up the hardwired phone and punched in Davenport’s cell phone number, and at the same time, she said, “Mattsson,” into her cell.

She recognized his voice with the first syllable. “How you doing, Cat?”

“Nobody calls me that,” she said. Davenport wasn’t answering. “I am coming for you.”

“Well, I know that,” the killer said. “There’ll be a big gunfight somewheres, and I’ll have my.30–06 B-A-R and take a couple of you-all down, and then you’ll kill me, and guess what, we won’t be even. I’ll be about twenty ahead. You know what I’m saying?”

“That’s crazy,” Mattsson said, then almost bit her tongue. Wrong word. “You need treatment. You need help. You really do. .” Goddamn Davenport wasn’t answering. “You need to come in, because you don’t have to die.”

The killer laughed, a chuffing laugh, and said, “You ain’t gonna let me give up. Be honest, Cat. Ain’t gonna happen, not after I smoked that state cop. Anyway, I’m sure you’re tracking this by now, so I gotta go away. I just wanted to call you and tell you I left another little present for you up at the Black Hole. I know I’m gonna die, so, you know, a man’s gotta have some fun. . ”

He laughed a last time, and signed off.

Mattsson said, “Shit!” and jumped out of bed, called the Goodhue duty officer and was shouting at him, getting whoever was out there over to the Black Hole, more than one guy, everybody available, stop anyone on nearby roads.

She finished with the instructions, dressed, pulled her shoes on, grabbed her car keys, purse, gun, and headed for the door, leaving the lights on behind her.

No time, no time , she thought. He’ll be long gone .

She fumbled the chain off the door, yanked it open.

And there he was: she knew it the instant she sensed him.

R-A hit her, hard as he could, right on the point of the chin. The potato split and went flying and Mattsson went straight to the floor, and R-A was on top of her, like a tiger on a goat, slugged her again, rolled her, threw a twist of tape around her mouth, turned, taped her legs, turned again, wrenched her arms behind her. She was starting to struggle, just feebly, and made a loud moaning sound, and he taped her hands, and then wrapped more tape, sloppy but tight, across her lower face and mouth, threw more tape around her lower face, ankles, more around her arms, and more around her head. Then he dragged her fully inside, and pushed the door shut.

Her cell phone rang, but he kicked it away: didn’t want it anywhere near her.

He worked quickly, more wraps around her ankles, her arms and hands. She moaned again and started to struggle, but there wasn’t anything in it. He checked her pockets for weapons, found her pistol, but no knife. He left the pistol on the floor, wiped and tossed the burner-he didn’t need it anymore, and was afraid that if he carried it even a block, it would give the cops something they could use, like a location and time.

R-A looked around for anything he might have inadvertently dropped, that could give him away. Nothing. He was breathing hard, he realized, his heart going like a trip-hammer. He took a few seconds, tried to calm down, then picked her up, over his shoulder, carried her out into the hall, kicked the door shut again, and went down the stairs.

The streets were empty. He left her lying inside the door, walked quickly out to the Suburban, opened the back, then walked back, picked her up, and threw her inside. He climbed in after her, and took a quick couple of turns of tape across her eyes, to blind her.

A moment later, he was headed south out of the city. The available Goodhue cops should be heading west, toward the Black Hole.

He could loop around, and avoid them all.

With any luck. .

His luck held.

He took her south to the town of Frontenac, then turned west and south on County 2. On the way, Mattsson apparently recovered from the punch, as he’d hoped she would, and began kicking at the inside of the truck, her boots pounding at the panels below the windows. After one particularly loud flurry, he started to laugh, and shouted back at her, “If you keep kickin’, you’ll wear yourself out. Then how’re you gonna fight me?”

That stopped her.

The blow to the head hurt Mattsson: she’d toppled backwards, and the back of her head cracked against the wooden floor, a second blow nearly as severe as the blow to her chin. Then the killer was on her, and he hit her again. She lost consciousness for a time, but she had no way to know how long. When she began to come back, her ankles and arms were already taped.