John Sandford - Wicked Prey

One thing, though, was clear in her mind-if Lucas heard about this, he'd kill Whitcomb. Not theoretically kill, but actually kill. He'd probably do it in a clever way that would be undetectable, unprovable. But there were always accidents. Lucas himself had told her that: that sometimes, the cleverest of crimes was foiled by an unforeseeable accident.

He would take the risk, she thought.

Letty needed a father, and a mother, and when her mother was murdered, Davenport and Weather had been there.

If there was any way she could prevent Lucas from taking the risk by acting against Whitcomb, she'd do it. She had, in fact, in the ugly denouement of the case where she'd met Lucas, shot a cop-actually, she'd shot the same cop on two different occasions-and had never felt the slightest regret. She'd never had a problem being decisive.

She slipped the piece of paper out of her backpack, with Whitcomb's address on it, contemplated it. All right, she thought. Take a look.

Ellen, the housekeeper, was changing sheets when Letty walked through the door; Letty said hello, got a Coke from the refrigerator, put it in her backpack, and went quietly through the house and down the basement stairs. Lucas had a workbench in the basement, and a gun safe. She found the hidden key for the gun safe, unlocked it, dragged out a nylon bag of miscellaneous cop stuff, and took out the switchblade sheath. Lucas never used the knife, as far as she knew, and would never miss it. The sheath was made of black nylon with a safety buckle. She took the knife out of the sheath, put the sheath back, and pressed the button on the knife and felt the satisfying shock of the blade slamming out.

Good. Five inches of sharp steel, with a good point, and, halfway down the razor-sharp blade, two inches of serrations that would cut through the toughest nylon or Kevlar rope. The knife was flat and fairly thin, the handle made of a high-tech black plastic with a metal belt clip. She clipped it inside the waistband of her pants, where it would be handy.

The day was gorgeous, warm, delightful biking.

She got her helmet and bike out of the garage, and headed north to Summit Avenue, then east, planning to cross St. Paul's downtown, only remembering about the convention detours when she got to St. Paul Cathedral and saw a band of protesters marching down the hill toward the downtown. They appeared to be towing a coffin. A veterans-for-peace march: she'd heard a couple of producers talking about it.

She sat at the top of the hill, in the shade of the cathedral, watching, drank a couple ounces of Coke, got out the map and figured out a detour down University Avenue behind the Capitol and Regions Hospital.

A little longer, but not much trouble, riding through an industrial area, across the railroad tracks, up behind Swede Hollow Park. From the map, it looked like Whitcomb's house was right on the edge of the park, but the other side from where she was, so she pedaled down to East Seventh and looked up the hill toward Metro State University.

All right. Here she was. Now what?

She had her hair up under her helmet, and was wearing sunglasses; that was enough of a disguise. Pedaling up the hill, she decided that she'd cruise Whitcomb's place on the downhill. If they spotted her, it'd be an easy run down to Seventh and into downtown, where there'd be lots of cops around as convention security.

She did that, climbing the hill, taking the left on Hope to Margaret, and paused there. She could see the trees from the park behind the houses on Greenbriar, but there must be, she thought, a huge hole behind the houses, because she was looking at treetops.

Needed more scouting; but the house was right there, or should be, about halfway down the street. She got up her guts, and pedaled on down. Before she could spot Whitcomb's number, she saw the van, sitting by the side of the house.

The house was old and decrepit, with peeling paint, a crumbling front porch, a sagging roof, and a front sidewalk of poured concrete slabs that were tilted this way and that. The grass on the postage-stamp lawn had rarely been cut, she thought; it lay flat, like the fescue grass in a cow pasture.

She rolled on by, saw nobody, looked to her left and saw the break in the line of houses. From a block over, she could look between two houses and see the front of Whitcomb's place. She'd heard Lucas and Del and Sloan and Virgil and all the others talk about the boredom of surveillance, and the sometimes spectacular payoffs.

She'd watch for a while, she decided. She could cruise the area around the park, and check the van every few minutes. Get the lay of the land '

A bike path wound down through the park, as it turned out. The place was essentially a hole in the ground, but not just an ordinary hole: it was a huge, spectacular hole, almost like a quarry. She could see houses along the top rim, through breaks in the trees. As a park, there wasn't much, and what there was, was overgrown, weedy. A bum was wandering through, carrying a backpack, watching her curiously, as though she were a strange sight. Maybe she was, she thought.

She pedaled out of the park, around the back, up the hill, and found a spot one block over from Whitcomb's place.

Got lucky. She'd sat there, with her bike, for ten minutes, when Whitcomb's door banged open, and Randy Whitcomb, followed by the woman, rolled down the wooden handicap ramp to the van. They were trailed by a third man, rail-thin, with a scruffy beard.

Whitcomb pointed a remote control at the van, and the side door rolled back, and a ramp unfolded onto the driveway. Whitcomb rolled himself up the ramp, and the woman strapped him in, the straps anchored to the floor. When she was done, the woman yanked on the straps, testing them, then walked around the van and got into the driver's seat, and the second man got in the passenger side.

The van backed out of the driveway, into the street, and turned down the hill. Letty ran parallel, to Seventh Street, saw the van heading into town.

AS a young girl, she'd learned that if she decided to do something, it was best to do it immediately: otherwise, somebody would stop you from doing it, or you'd start thinking too much and chicken out. She'd taught herself to drive when she was eight, bumping around the field behind the house, and though the cops would get pissed when they caught her at it, she'd driven herself all over the county by the time she was eleven.

An old drunk would sometimes lend her his truck in return for a late-night pickup at the town bar; and when her mom got drunk, she'd provided the same service. In her driving years, she'd never had an accident.

Now, as the van dwindled in the distance, she looked back at the house. How quickly could they get back, anyway? With the snarl of traffic in town, with streets blocked by marches '

She turned around and pulled up the hill, pedaling hard, straight up the street to Whitcomb's place, down the side, turned the bike so it was facing out the drive.

The handicapped ramp ended in a newer-looking door with six small panes arranged in a square looking into a mudroom off a kitchen, just like the country farmhouse where she'd grown up. She knocked, loudly, heard nothing. Looked around. She could be seen from the street, but jeez, she was a young girl on a back porch.

Letty knew about burglary from Lucas and Del and Shrake and Jenkins and all the other cops who hung around with Lucas; and from the reporters and producers at the station. She knew you were allowed one loud noise, or two quiet ones '

She took the switchblade out of her waistband, flicked the blade out, took another quick look around, and shoved the blade through the glass next to the door lock. The glass dropped inside the door and she had to punch it again to get the last of it out. Then she reached through and flicked the turn-lock.