John Sandford - Phantom prey

“I’ll think about it, but it sounds overcooked,” Lucas said. “A little overcooked,” Del agreed.

Back at home, Lucas walked around the house for a bit, working the leg, kneading it, took another pain pill, found his thinking was a little fuzzy, and went to take a nap.

Weather woke him at dinnertime: “Leg hurts?"

"It has been.” He rolled a bit, flexed it, tried it out: better. “Not so bad, now.” Weather knelt next to the bed, pulled the bedside lamp over. “Let me see it.” She pulled the tape and the dressing, her fingers stroking the bruises. “No new bleeding-but you’re pushing too hard. I want you immobile for the rest of the evening. And tomorrow, take it easy.”

“All right.” She sat back on her heels. “You agreed too fast. It must hurt more than you’re telling me.” Lucas said, “It’s not that-it’s fucked me up this time. Getting shot at. I’ve been thinking about it, all those shots. Could have hit me in the heart as well as the leg-and no more you, no more Sam, no more Letty.”

She’d gotten the gauze and tape and a tube of disinfectant ointment out of the bedstand, and folded the gauze and laid it over the wound, and said, “Last time you got shot at, you were on your own. No responsibilities.”

“It’s not responsibilities,” he said. “You guys would get along without me. It’s me. I wouldn’t get to see the kids grow up, I wouldn’t get to jump your bones… I’d miss too much.”

“Talk to the governor,” she said. “Get an office job."

"Be nice if it were that easy,” he said. “Just make one change, and life becomes simple.” She finished taping him up, put the medical kit back in the bedstand drawer, touched his cheek. “I’ve got no advice. Except, c’mon and eat.”

He sighed and sat up. “Gotta call Alyssa."

"You’re not quitting?"

"No. I need to go back over to her house,” he said. “Get in there alone."

"You’re gonna sneak something?"

"No. I’m gonna reenact the crime,” Lucas said. “Atta-boy,” she said.

Austin met him at the door, the bright sunlight breaking around her, barefoot, in a woolen top and straight long skirt. She smiled and at the same time looked sad, too sad. “You’re going to reenact?”

“Yeah. I got some advice that I might as well take,” Lucas said. “Also: when I was reading the case file, there was an inventory of Frances’s apartment, and a note that you were going to move her things and close the apartment. Did you do that?”

“Yes. Everything was brought back here. It’s all up in her room,” she said.

“I would like to take a look,” Lucas said. “When you’re gone."

"Absolutely. C’mon, I’ll show you where.” He followed her up a curving stairs, all polished maple, down a long hall that, at the very end, appeared, through a half- closed door, to open into a bedroom the size of a basketball court. She stopped short of that room, opened a different door, flipped a light.

Frances’s room was full of cardboard boxes. “I never unpacked. I haven’t been able to look at her stuff, yet,” she said. She touched one of the boxes. “The big ones are clothes. The small ones are personal effects. Books and jewelry and letters and notes and all that.”

“I’ll start with the acting,” he said. “It’d be better if I were alone."

"And I’ve got work to do,” she said. “I’ve got so many meetings I might as well be a politician."

"Before you go,” he said as they went down the stairs, “I was kicking this whole thing around with another guy. This idea came up- what if there was somebody here, waiting for you? And they attacked Frances by mistake. As I understand it, neither you nor anybody else expected Frances to come home. You told the crime- scene people that there hadn’t been a burglary, you weren’t missing anything, so it probably wasn’t a burglar. Is there anyone who would be interested in hurting you? Is there anything going on in your life? An angry boyfriend, a relative who’d benefit from your death, a business competitor… though that’s a bit far- fetched.”

“A mistake?” She was shocked, an open hand going to her breastbone. “Somebody coming for me?”

“It’s thin… but is there anybody?"

"Well, I have relatives. My parents. Hunter’s mother died years ago, but his father’s still alive, out in LA. He’d get some money, but he doesn’t really need it. There are some specific bequests in our wills. You think… the Bach and Beethoven Society would put out a contract on me?”

That made him laugh; but he said, “I’m a little serious. Is there a boyfriend?”

“No, not yet,” she said. “Was there a boyfriend? When Hunter was alive?"

"No. There was not.” Some frost, now. “No girlfriends, either."

"Hey-I’m not trying to insult you, I’m trying to figure this out,” Lucas said. “Any businesspeople who were pissed at you? Did you or Hunter screw somebody to the point where they might come looking for revenge? Or maybe a stalker-some deluded guy who thought he’d been screwed…”

She’d softened up after he snapped back at her: “Lucas, we’ve got money, but we’re really pretty ordinary people. Nobody stalks us, nobody cares. Hunter had a nice company, but it wasn’t General Motors. We had disgruntled employees, but nobody dangerous, as far as I know. They didn’t know me, anyway. And Hunter was dead. Why would they come after me?”

“Think about it,” Lucas said. “If you think of anything , let me know.”

She left him standing in the kitchen. He heard the Mercedes come to life, and then the garage door rolling up and down. They’d pushed the housekeeper out of the main wing, and he could hear the faint sound of vacuuming somewhere down the endless hallways. Other than that, he was alone.

Okay. According to the crime-scene analysts, the murder-or whatever it had been-occurred where a hallway exited the kitchen, leading down to the living room on the right, with the dining room right around the corner to the left

But wait. He wasn’t reenacting, he was just thinking about it, simply buying the crime- scene report. Start over. He walked back to the garage, out into it, then turned and came back.

It was dark. Huh. Austin had come in from the garage, but would Frances? Why would she? Two spaces were taken up by Austin’s cars, a third space by the housekeeper’s, although the housekeeper’s space would have been empty. Still, Frances would probably park in front and enter through the front door. Wouldn’t she?

He had Austin on speed dial, caught her a mile or two out, still in her car. “When your daughter came over, did she park in the garage, or out front?”

“Out front."

"Thanks.” Click. Outside, to the front door. Okay, the kid comes in through the front door. She can go straight ahead to the kitchen, left, to the family room/entertainment wing, or right into a public space, a greeting room. No reason to do that.

So she disarms the alarm system, walks straight ahead, into the kitchen. Now what? He stood there, at the corner of the kitchen. The reenactment was already breaking down, because there were too many possible branches. Two possibilities right here, or maybe three.

— She argues with somebody who came with her. -She argues with somebody already in the house. -She encounters somebody in the dark-all right, give the credit to O’Keefe-who was waiting for Alyssa Austin, but who attacks Frances by mistake.

But did it happen right after she came in? Might not be able to tell without her coat-if the coat was cut through, then she’d still have had it on.

He struggled with it for a bit, then thought, Let it go . Anyway, Frances is attacked. Does the killer already have the weapon, or does he get it from the drawer? If the killing was carefully planned, why would he do it with a paring knife?