John Sandford - Field of Prey

“I do like the pussy,” R-A said, “and I do like the killing, I got to tell you. I like the sound it makes, when you’re choking somebody out. But that’s not for a while, yet. It might not be at all, if you can take me.”

“Where are we?” Mattsson asked.

“Down my basement.”

Her tongue flicked out: it felt dry as dust. “I mean, what town?”

“Holbein.”

She looked around and asked, “I’m supposed to fight you?”

“That’s the only way you’re gonna get out of here.”

Mattsson pushed away from the wall behind her, and R-A did the same thing.

Mattsson had been judging him. He was out of shape, she thought: a lot of muscle, but a lot of fat, too. If she could get close enough, with either hand, she’d go for his eyes. Getting close enough would be a problem; when she moved away from the wall, he did, too, and then he fell into a boxing stance.

Mattsson took a step and he watched, then moved in on her and said, “Come on, come on, what are you gonna do? You’re a cop, you must’ve had-”

She waited until he was halfway through whatever he was going to say, and launched a roundhouse kick at his head. Nearly got him, but he pulled back in an eyelash of time and her foot just kissed his nose, just flicked it.

R-A blinked and stepped inside as her leg recoiled and hit her on the side of the face with a roundhouse right hand, like being hit with a brick, and she went down. Dazed, she tried to scramble back up, and he kicked her in the hip with a heavy boot and she went down again and he was on her, straddling her, beating her, and she was blacking out and nearly gone when he said, “A kick’s too slow, Cat. Something to remember for next time. But now, you got me all hot and bothered. Time for a little more fuckin’.”

He raped her again.

She was like a rag, after the beating, no way to resist.

She was on the concrete floor, blood seeping from her nose and mouth, when she heard the door open. He threw a cloth at her-an army blanket, as it turned out-and said, “See you later. You better get some rest, because you’re gonna need it.”

Then he was gone, and the room was thrown into a deep, abiding darkness.

Lucas woke up at nine o’clock, with a little more than three hours of sleep, when Letty called. “Cheryl’s up, we’re going pretty soon.”

“Fifteen minutes, wait for me,” Lucas said. “Did Cheryl hear anything more?”

“Not a thing-which I think is good,” Letty said.

Del woke up at ten o’clock, the three of them sitting around the foot of his bed. When he stirred and opened his eyes, Cheryl was bent over him, and she said, “You fuckin’ moron.”

He groaned, “Hey, sweet.”

“Don’t call me sweet. . ”

Lucas half-pushed her out of Del’s line of sight, and bent over him. “You fuckin’ moron.”

“Hey. . I don’t hurt much.”

“You are hurt,” Lucas said. “Believe me. And you will hurt. What the fuck. .”

Cheryl pushed Lucas out of the way and cried, “Baby. .”

Lucas said, “I’m not calling you baby, I can tell you that. .”

Letty moved in: “How’re you doing, Del?”

“I don’t know, how am I?” He seemed slightly confused by all the bodies, his eyes unsteady.

Cheryl said, “You’re fine. You’ll be in bed for a few days, and we’ll get you home. No spinal involvement. . I mean, you’re gonna hurt, but then you’ve been shot, so, what do you expect? How many times have I told you-”

“I’m really gonna be all right?”

Lucas moved Cheryl aside again and said, “They say there’s no problem about transplanting a new dick. The thing is, they’ve only got a batch of ‘smalls’ right now.”

Cheryl and Letty, simultaneously, “Lucas!/Dad!”

Del coughed and said, “Jesus Christ, don’t make me laugh.”

And his eyes closed.

Del kept waking up and falling asleep. He was asleep and Lucas and Letty were in the hallway, talking quietly about finding some breakfast, when Lucas’s cell phone rang. Jon Duncan calling. He almost ignored it: BCA agents and Minneapolis cops had been calling all morning, along with Rose Marie and the governor.

But he took it: “Davenport.”

“How’s Del?”

“He’s gonna make it, but he’s hurt bad.”

“That’s what everybody tells me,” Duncan said. “God, I hope that’s right. I hope that’s good. But. . I didn’t call about Del. Lucas. .”

“What?”

“Catrin Mattsson. Nobody can find her. She isn’t at home-she left in the middle of the night, in a hurry. Her gun and cell phone were on the floor inside her door.”

“Oh, Jesus. Jesus. He’s got her.”

“We don’t know that, but we’re afraid that’s what it is,” Duncan said. “I don’t have all the details yet. I’m at home, just heading out there-”

“I know that,” Lucas was almost shouting. “He’s got her, Jon. Holy Jesus, I got to get back there.”

He rang off, and Letty asked, “What?”

“Black Hole guy,” Lucas said. “He’s got Catrin.”

Lucas’s instinct was to grab a cab to the airport and fly back to Minnesota right now . He couldn’t do that: there were people to call, arrangements to make. He got the pilots headed back to the airport, then talked at a hundred miles an hour at Letty.

“You’ve got to take care of Cheryl,” he said. “Everybody’s happy about Del, but I can tell you, he’s not out of the woods. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I’m going to have to lean on you. Put everything on the AmEx card. This won’t take more than a couple of days.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because that’s how long I’ve got to get her back. We believe he abuses the women for a while before he kills them.”

“You mean, rapes them.” Looking at him with the stillness she’d shown a few other times, since Lucas had first met her; like just before she’d shot a cop.

“That, and whatever else turns his crank,” Lucas said. “But it gives me some time, some little bit of time.”

“The other guys. .”

“. . won’t get him back,” Lucas said. “It’s on me.”

Lucas went back to Del, leaned over him and said, “I want to stay, Del, but I gotta go. That Black Hole killer’s got Catrin Mattsson, the woman cop we saw at the hole. God only knows what he’s doing to her.”

“Take off,” Del said. “Get him. See you when I get back.”

Lucas was back at the airport in a half hour, and gone in forty- five minutes. He asked the pilots to tell him when they got close to a metro area, or crossed an interstate highway, so he could use his cell phone. They passed west of the Amarillo area, over I-40, and he called Virgil Flowers.

“How jammed up are you?” he asked.

“Pretty jammed,” Flowers said. “This killing has gone all weird. What’s up?”

“The Black Hole killer’s got Catrin Mattsson.”

“What!”

“Yeah. I’m shredding the murder books, but I’ve already been through them twice, looking for anything. . I don’t know why I’m calling you, except that you know Catrin.”

“Listen, Lucas, she and I never had any kind of close relationship,” Flowers said. “I mean, if I could help you out in any way, I’d drop everything and haul ass up there. But I don’t know what I could do. This thing down here. . I don’t want it to get away from me.”

“All right. Goddamnit, Virgil, I got nothing, I’m desperate. I’m calling you so you can tell me what to do.”

“I don’t know, man. All I know about the case is what I’ve seen on TV, that little girl and the mailman guy.”

“All right. Stay with your case, but if you think of anything. .”