Night Prey Read Online Free Page A

lines of fire trucks, local cop cars, and sheriff's vehicles. The squad stopped almost on their feet, and Sloan climbed out, bent over to the driver, a uniformed sergeant, and said, "Keep the change."
    "Blow me," the driver said genially, and eased away.
    Sloan was a narrow man with a slatlike face. He wore a hundred-fifty-dollar tan summer suit, brown shoes a shade too yellow, and a fedora the color of beef gravy. "How do, Lucas," he said. His eyes shifted to Del. "Del, you look like shit, my man."
    "Where'd you get the hat?" Lucas asked. "Is it too late to take it back?"
    "My wife bought it for me," Sloan said, sliding his fingertips along the brim. "She says it complements my ebullient personality."
    Del said, "Still got her head up her ass, huh?"
    "Careful," Sloan said, offended. "You're talking about my hat." He looked at Lucas. "We gotta go for a ride."
    "Where to?"
    "Wisconsin." He rocked on the toes of the too-yellow shoes. "Hudson. Look at a body."
    "Anybody I know?" Lucas asked.
    Sloan shrugged. "You know a chick named Harriet Wannemaker?"
    "I don't think so," Lucas said.
    "That's who it probably is."
    "Why would I go look at her?"
    "Because I say so and you trust my judgment?" Sloan made it a question.
    Lucas grinned. "All right."
    Sloan looked down the block at Lucas's Porsche. "Can I drive?"
    "Pretty bad in there?" Sloan asked. He threw his hat in the back and downshifted as they rolled up to a stop sign at Highway 280.
    "They executed him. Shot him in the teeth," Lucas said. "Think it might be the Seeds."
    "Miserable assholes," Sloan said without too much heat. He accelerated onto 280.
    "What happened to what's-her-name?" Lucas asked. "Wannabe."
    "Wannemaker. She dropped out of sight three days ago. Her friends say she was going out to some bookstore on Friday night, they don't know which one, and she didn't show up to get her hair done Saturday. We put out a missing persons note, and that's the last we know until this morning, when Hudson called. We shot a Polaroid over there; it wasn't too good, but they think it's her."
    "Shot?"
    "Stabbed. The basic technique is a rip-a stick in the lower belly, then an upward pull. Lots of power. That's why I'm looking into it."
    "Does this have something to do with what's-her-name, the chick from the state?"
    "Meagan Connell," Sloan said. "Yeah."
    "I hear she's trouble."
    "Yeah. She could use a personality transplant," Sloan said. He blew the doors off a Lexus SC, allowing himself a small smile. The guy in the Lexus wore shades and driving gloves. "But when you actually read her files, the stuff she's put together-she's got something, Lucas. But Jesus, I hope this isn't one of his. It sounds like it, but it's too soon. If it's his, he's speeding up."
    "Most of them do," Lucas said. "They get addicted to it."
    Sloan paused at a stoplight, then ran the red and roared up the ramp onto Highway 36. Shifting up, he pushed the Porsche to seventy-five and kept it there, cutting through traffic like a shark. "This guy was real regular," he said. "I mean, if he exists. He did one killing every year or so. Now we're talking about four months. He did the last one just about the time you were gettin' shot. Picked her up in Duluth, dumped the body up at the Carlos Avery game reserve."
    "Any leads?" Lucas touched the pink scar on his throat.
    "Damn few. Meagan's got a file."
    They took twenty minutes getting to Wisconsin, out the web of interstates through the countryside east of St. Paul, the landscape green and heavy after a wet spring. "It's better out here in the country," Sloan said. "Christ, the media's gonna get crazy with this cop killed."
    "Lotta shit coming down," Lucas said. "At least the cop's not ours."
    "Four killed in five days," Sloan said. "Wannemaker will make five in a week. Actually, we might have six. We're looking into an old lady who croaked in her bed. A couple of the guys think she might've been helped along. They're calling it natural, for now."
    "You cleared the