John Sandford - Field of Prey

All Mattsson had were her fingernails and the blanket. For a long time, she used the blanket to wrap around herself, as her mind drifted away from her. When it came back, she tried to think of something that she could do with the blanket; could she shred it, make a rope out of it, use it somehow?

That was all bullshit, she thought. That was like some old TV show, where the guy invents an anti-tank weapon with a hairpin and a jar of Vaseline.

But she had her fingernails. If she could just get at an eye. . if she could get at an eye, and then, after he was blinded or partly blinded, she could try to stay to that side of him, and maybe get the other. . But she couldn’t get close enough.

She thought about it.

Fingernails and a blanket.

R-A watched television all morning, clicking around to local news channels. Everybody was looking for him, he thought, with some satisfaction. They were going crazy out there. Most of the search was in Zumbrota and Holbein, but a crime-scene crew was shown working in Red Wing, at Mattsson’s apartment.

A little after noon, having eaten a lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, R-A got his keys and went down to the basement. Outside the door, he stripped down-getting undressed during a violent rape was a lot of trouble, if there were any resistance at all, and he liked at least a little resistance.

When he was ready, he shouted, “Coming again, Cat.” He put the key in the lock and braced his feet, in case she tried to kick it open. She didn’t. He opened it just an inch and looked through the crack between the door and the jamb.

Mattsson was on her feet on the far side of the room.

“What the fuck is that all about?” R-A asked. He stepped inside, pulled the door shut, locked it. He dropped the keys on the floor and sidled toward her. “Your suit of armor?”

Mattsson had ripped the blanket into strips and wrapped the strips in multiple layers around her head-around her forehead, across her nose, across her chin. Then she’d folded the rest of the blanket into a thick pad, and with three more strips, tied the pad down the front of her body.

Her arms hung free.

“You think that’s gonna protect you?” R-A asked as he moved in on her.

She said nothing, but moved back into a corner, and crouched.

“Come on, get up,” R-A said. In a crouch like that, she’d be harder to hit. Back in a corner, he couldn’t maneuver around her. “Get up and fight like a cop.”

“Fuck you, fat man,” she said. “I’m gonna pull that pathetic little dick right off your fat gut.”

Get him mad , she thought. She flicked her fingernails against the palms of her hands. She’d found one good use for the concrete walls-she’d used them to hone her nails, which were now as sharp as a cat’s claws.

“Get up here, you. .” and his hand arced at the top of her head and he grabbed her hair. . as she thought he might. When he pulled, instead of resisting, she launched herself straight up toward his face and slashed at his eyes with both hands.

And missed.

Slashed his face, but missed his eyes. He screamed and staggered backwards, but didn’t fall. She went back to the corner and her crouch. He was so angry that he hurtled at her, and just before he would have crashed into her, she launched herself again, and they collided, his weight knocking her backwards, but her claws were slicing at his face again.

He hit her in the face, but the pads took the blow, knocking her back but not down, and she tried for his eyes again. He hit her twice in the body, twisting his face away from her, but again, the heavy padding gave her some protection.

Again he came straight at her, but this time, his arms full-length in front of him. Her nails sliced up his forearms, but he got a hand at her throat and smashed her head against the wall, and she sliced at his hands, but he held on, and smashed her again, and this time she blacked out for a second, and then he was beating her down and unconscious.

When she came to, her eyelids fluttering, her head and body had been stripped of the padding. She didn’t know exactly where she was, or what had happened to her, but then a dark object. . a head?. . blocked out some of the light, and R-A said, “Here he comes again.”

He raped her only once, then dragged the weight bench out of the room and said, “You cut me up good that time, Cat. You better think of something else, though. Your armor’s gone, and when I come back, I’m bringing my rope.”

She said, “Fuck you,” and passed out on the floor.

Lucas was coming up to the Red Wing bridge on the Mississippi when his phone rang. Letty calling from El Paso.

“What’s up?”

“They’ve taken Del back into the operating room,” she said.

“Ah, no. Why? How bad?”

“They say he’s sprung a leak-that’s Cheryl’s language, not the doctor’s. The doctor told me that it wasn’t unusual. The shot that did all the damage just nicked the point of his pelvis and sprayed some bone fragments back into his intestinal cavity. He started running a fever and they think they have some contamination to clean up. The doc said they should be able to handle it, but it’s not good.”

“Ah, man. Ah, man, I oughta be there,” Lucas said.

“Not until you get Catrin back,” Letty said. “When will that be?”

“Tonight. I’ll get her back tonight.”

“I’ll call you when they take Del out of the operating room,” Letty said. “Cheryl’s trying not to freak out. You call me when you get Catrin.”

“Deal,” Lucas said. “You turned out to be a pretty good kid, you know? Even if you do date soccer players.”

He called Duncan, and asked where they were.

“We took about ten guys to interview Bonet. He pronounces his name bone-ay. Anyhow, he’s not the guy. We know that because he was at a party here until sometime after twelve last night, with his wife. He couldn’t have gotten to Red Wing even if he fit the rest of the profile: he’s big, he’s too young, and he’s got a wife who’s been with him since high school, and they’ve got four young kids.”

“All right. How about the other guy?”

“We’re saddling up right now,” Duncan said. “From the facts and figures, he looks better.”

“I’ll see you there,” Lucas said. “I’m crossing the Mississippi.”

He turned on his flashers and ran through Red Wing in a hurry, the navigation system taking him up Highway 61, the one that Bob Dylan revisited, and then west toward the town of Cannon Falls.

Davis Tory’s house was in the countryside two miles east of the town. Duncan called and said, “We’re coming up to Tory’s place now.”

“I’ll be there in one minute if my nav system is right,” Lucas said.

“See you there.”

The house was a quarter-mile or so down a lane off County 19. Lucas took the turn, accelerated up a long, low hill, and when he came to the crest, saw two SUVs and two sheriff’s cars climbing up a blacktop driveway toward a modern house that sat a hundred yards or so back from the road.

Lucas felt a touch of hope: the place was surrounded by a huge green lawn, carefully trimmed. There was a flagpole out front, with an American flag at the top. The house was barn-red, and behind it, off to the side, was a large metal building, the same color as the house.

The place looked obsessively neat, and Lucas was looking for somebody obsessive. The first cops out were wearing vests and helmets, and went to both the front and side doors. Lucas turned up the driveway in time to see somebody at the door of the house-a woman with pixie-cut dark hair in a blue dress. She said something to the cops, and pointed around to the side of the house, and then came out with them.