John Sandford - Wicked Prey

Carey bored in: "Did you force this girl to perform oral sex?"

"I did no such thing…"

"Did you force the bathroom door, naked, while she was in the shower and press your body against hers?"

"No-no-no…"

"… Get into her bed naked after forcing the bedroom door?"

"No-no…" Johnson was trying to get back to his truck, but Cramer blocked him and growled, "Don't touch the camera, mate."

Carey put the knife in: "Are you going back to her house, Mr. Johnson? Are you going to continue seeing this girl's mother?"

"No, no, no…"

Carey turned to Cramer and said, "Turn off the camera."

He dropped the lens toward the ground and Carey put her face close to Johnson's, and he flinched away, a line of sweat on his upper lip, and she said, "We're friends of Juliet. And we're really from Channel Three. If you go back to see Juliet's mother, if you ever talk to Juliet again, we'll put this tape on the evening news, I swear to God."

Cramer said, in a working-class British accent, "You heard the phrase, tossing the salad?"

Johnson drew back from Carey. "Maybe."

"You're gonna be the designated salad-tosser at Stillwater state correctional institution if you go back on Juliet," Cramer said. "When you get out, if you get out, you're gonna have to walk up and down every neighborhood you'll ever live in, and knock on the doors and tell the people you're a registered pervert. Keep that in mind." He reached out with his free hand and pinched one of Johnson's nipples, hard.

Johnson squealed, "Ah," and jerked back.

"And I'll pinch your other nipple," Cramer said. "If you get out."

They retreated to the van. Cramer put the camera inside and they slid the doors shut, and left Johnson standing in the driveway, in a puddle of dropped political advertisements.

Letty said, "Harsh." But she was smiling.

"If the station ever finds out what we did, we might get fired," Carey said.

"You forgot to mention that," Cramer said, but he didn't seem worried.

"You would have come anyway," Carey said. To Letty: "So Juliet's good-she's got a place to stay."

Letty asked Cramer, "What was that thing about a salad?"

But when Letty called Briar, the other girl began sobbing. "I'm at the hospital. I've been at the hospital all night. Randy got hurt."

"How?"

"Some asshole threw him in front of a car," Briar said. "He got run over."

The image in Letty's mind almost made her laugh, but she pushed the impulse away and asked, "How bad? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay…" and Briar unraveled the whole story, starting with their failure to track down a methamphetamine salesman, on to the purchase of a pint of rum, Randy and Ranch getting loaded, the decision to stop at the cafe in St. Paul, still hoping to find George, the crank salesman, the argument, and the fight.

"So ' this guy was sort of protecting you, right?" Letty asked. "Randy was threatening to beat you up, and this guy threw Randy in front of a car?"

"Well, I didn't need that, I didn't ask him for that, Randy wasn't' Randy's really hurt, Letty. He's all bruised, you should see it, and his foot's broken. I can't go home now. Who'd take care of him? He can't even cook."

"Juliet-I've got to talk to you," Letty said. "Is there someplace to eat there, at the hospital?"

"The cafeteria…"

"Which hospital?"

"Regions. I can see the Capitol out the window."

"We're going to come there. I'll meet you in the cafeteria in half an hour," Letty said.

Letty persuaded Carey to drop her at the hospital; she'd catch the bus home. "She wants to talk to me alone. I'll tell her about Don."

Carey was skeptical: "This whole other thing that you were planning-that won't work if she just goes home."

"I've got another plan," Letty said. "Once she's home, and she's safe, and Don's not there, I'll get her to talk to the police about Randy," Letty said. "I asked Lorenzo at the station, he said that if she told the police about Randy, they wouldn't even have to have a trial. He's on parole, and they'd put him back inside, for drug use and prostitution and maybe assault. They might have a trial on some of those, but they'd put him away first."

Lorenzo the Lawyer covered legal affairs for the news department.

"That's enough for you?" Carey asked. "That he goes back to jail?"

"If that's what I can get, that's what I can get," Letty said. "It'll take care of the problem for a couple of more years."

"I'll drop you," Carey said. "Don't forget to tell her about Don."

"I'll tell her," Letty said.

"Letty?"

"I'll tell her."

Letty told her, but Briar, scared and sad and also, Letty thought, somewhat interested in Whitcomb's new disability, said she couldn't go home right away.

"I mean, I love it about that fucker Don," Briar said. "But Randy does love me somehow ' I know, I know what you're going to say, but I can feel it'"

"He treats you like a goddamn dog," Letty shrilled.

"Not anymore; he really needs me now."

"What if he starts in again?" Letty asked. "What if he gets his stick out?"

"He won't. He won't."

"Ah, God. Juliet, he'll put you out there again," Letty said. "You'll be trolling for old fat guys again."

"You just don't believe," Briar said, and then, "I gotta get back. He's really hurt."

When Briar got back to Whitcomb's room, she found him scratching on a piece of printer paper with a ballpoint. "Where the hell you been?"

"I got your ice cream," she said, and passed the carton to him, with a plastic spoon. He took it, and she asked, looking at the paper, "What are you doing, honey?"

"Making a plan. I been fuckin' off, no help from you and Ranch, but we're going after that Davenport bitch when I get out of here. No more fuckin' off."

Briar looked at the plan: a list of words in handwriting so cramped, with letters so tiny, that they were illegible.

"You don't have to read. It's my plan. You do what you're told."

Lucas jammed the Porsche in a slot in the short-term parking lot, ran into the underground ramp, carrying his overnight bag, flashed his ID across the counter at the Northwest Airlines ticket agent, said, "Plane leaves in twenty minutes, I gotta be on it'"

With his ticket in his pocket, he jumped the security line, and one of the TSA security guys got him a ride on a handicapped transporter, and the driver ran him out to the gate.

The gate attendant was standing at the door, the plane already loaded. She smiled at him as he hustled down the ramp and on board, and a flight attendant said, "Cut it close," and she smiled and shook her head, and he was in his seat.

Breathing hard.

He'd gotten the call no more than forty-five minutes earlier, that the Los Angeles cops thought they had a positive ID on the woman. Her name apparently was Elena Diaz, and she had an address in Venice, which the cop said was on the West Side, whatever that meant. More details coming; a couple of intelligence guys were going over to take a look, and a request for a search warrant was being considered.

"Have I got time to come out?"

"Nothing's going to happen for at least a couple of hours, maybe longer," the LA cop said. "Got to get our shit together, figure out what we're doing."

Lucas made a call, found out about the flight, called his housekeeper, got her to pack for him, and dashed across town and out to the airport.

Not until the plane turned down the runway did he remember how badly they frightened him, and here he was, strapped to a rocket, and then the plane blasted off and he was in the air, no books, no magazines, no pills.

Three and a half hours to LAX.

When he crawled off the plane at the other end, he turned on his cell phone and it lit up. He first returned the calls to Los Angeles, to the cop's cell phone. The cop answered, and Lucas identified himself, and the cop said, "There's been a fire…"