Night Prey (40 page)

"Doesn't want his wife to know," the girl said to Lucas.

"I guess." Shit. Koop would look at him.

Koop didn't. He tossed the magazine back on the rack and hurried out. Lucas looked after him. Just down the skyway, he saw Connell's blond hair and Jensen's black. He put the magazine back, and started after Koop, using the radio again.

"They're coming at you, Sloan. Del, where are you?"

"Coming up from behind. Sloan said you were pinned, and I stayed back in case he came that way. I'm coming up."

"Elevators," Connell grunted.

"I'm coming," Lucas said. "Del, Sloan, you better get your rides."

Sloan and Del acknowledged and Lucas said, "Greave, you guys ready?"

"We're ready." They were in the van, on the street.

"Elevator," Lucas said. He took the bug out of his ear, put it in his pocket.

Koop was facing the elevator door, waiting for it to return. He'd be the first on. Four other people waited, including Jensen and Connell. Jensen stood directly behind Koop's broad back, staring at the seam at his neck. Connell was beside her. Lucas edged in, just in front of Connell.

The elevator light went white, and the doors opened. Koop stepped in, pushed a button. Lucas stepped in beside him, turned the other way, pushed the button for Jensen's floor. Connell moved in on the other side of Lucas, in the corner, where Koop couldn't see her face. Lucas stood a half-step from the back of the elevator, quarter-turned toward Connell. Koop had never gotten a straight-on look at them, but they couldn't do this again, not for a couple of days. Jensen and another woman got on last, Jensen stepping immediately in front of Koop. The doors closed and they started up. Lucas couldn't see Koop, couldn't look at him. He said, "Long day," to Connell, who said, "Aren't they all... I think Del's coming down with a cold."

Elevator talk. The woman beside Jensen turned to look at Lucas, and Jensen stepped back a bit, her butt bumping the front of Koop's pants. "Sorry," she mumbled, flashing a glance back at him.

When they got off, Lucas and Connell got off behind her. The doors closed and Koop went on up. He was parked on seven.

"I saw that," Connell said to Jensen, grinning. "You're the bitch from hell."

"Thank you," Jensen said.

"Don't do it again," Lucas said as they walked toward the cars. "Right now, we're golden. A little too much, and we're screwed."

Koop followed Jensen out to a small strip shopping center; waited outside while she bought groceries.

"He's gonna do it," Connell said. She was watching him with the binoculars. She sounded elated and grim at the same time, like a burned survivor of a plane crash.

"He hasn't looked away from the door since she went in. He's totally focused. He's gonna do it."

Koop tracked Jensen back to her apartment, the pod of cops all around him, running the parallel streets, ahead and behind, switching off. Jensen rolled into the parking ramp. Koop stopped, watched for a few minutes from his truck, then began wandering, out on the interstates. He did a complete loop of the Cities, driving I-494 and I-694.

"Go on back, you fucker," Connell hissed at him. "Get back there."

At nine o'clock, they sat at a stoplight and watched two middle-aged men on a par-three golf course, one with white hair and the other with a crew cut, trying to play in the quickly closing darkness. The crew cut missed a two-foot putt, Lucas shook his head, and Koop moved on.

Ten minutes later, he was on I-35, heading north. Through the Minneapolis loop-and then, like a satellite in a degrading orbit, watched as he was slowly pulled back toward Jensen's apartment.

"He's headed in," Lucas said. "I'm breaking off, I'll beat him there. If he changes direction, let me know."

He ran the backstreets, Connell calling Jensen on the cellular phone. A minute later they rolled into Jensen's parking garage, dumped the car.

"Where is he?" Lucas asked the radio.

"He's coming," Greave answered. Greave was riding the van. "I think he's looking for a parking place."

"Let's get set up, gang," Lucas said. Then the elevator came, and he and Connell rode up.

Jensen met them at the door. "He's coming?"

"Maybe," Lucas said, stepping past her. "He's just outside."

"He's coming," Connell said. "I can feel him. He's coming."

Chapter
33

From the moment he'd left the jail, Koop had been consumed by his hunger for the woman.

Couldn't think of anything else.

Worked out, muscles still sore from jail, until he was loose again. Took a shower, thought about Jensen.

Went for a run in Braemar Park, up and over the hills. Went to an Arby's, ordered a sandwich, wandered away without it. The counter girl had to catch him in the parking lot. Thinking about Sara Jensen.

Then, in the elevator, he was crowded against the back of some big dude in an expensive suit, and Sara stood just in front of him. Halfway up, she stepped back and gave him another butt-rub. Yes.

She knew about him, all right.

This was the second time.

No mistake.

Koop drove the Cities, barely aware of the road, and found himself, just after dark, coming up to Sara Jensen's apartment house. He walked across the street and looked up. Frowned. The light wasn't quite right. She'd pulled one of the drapes in the bedroom at least partway.

Koop felt a pulse of danger: had they figured out the roof? Were they waiting up there? But if they had, she'd never have pulled the drapes. They'd leave everything alone.

No matter.

He'd go up anyway...

"He's inside," Greave called. "He had a key." Greave was still on the street, with the van. Del and Sloan had taken the elevators up as soon as it appeared that Koop was looking for parking. Sloan would wait at another apartment. Del was on his way to the roof.

"He did that couple, the woman across the street. To get the guy's keys," Connell said. "For sure."

Lucas said, "Yes."

Connell was sitting on the kitchen floor, below the counter. Lucas was in the hallway between the living room and Jensen's bedroom. Jensen was sitting on her bed. She'd partially pulled the drapes in her bedroom, so there was a two-foot-wide slit in them. Lucas had objected: "We should leave things the way they were."

"Wrong," she'd said. "I know what I'm doing."

She sounded so sure of herself that he let it go. Now he stood up and stepped toward her room. "Cameras," he said. "Action."

She stood up. She was wearing a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and showed bare legs and feet. "I'm set," she said. "Tell me what he's doing when you get it from Del."

"Sure. Don't look at me when I'm talking. Just keep reading."

They'd decided that she'd be reading in bed. Koop would be able to see most of her through the slot in the drapes. She picked up copies of the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Daily, spread them around, and dropped on the bed. "I'm a little jumpy."

"Remember: when I say get out, you don't do a thing but get," Lucas said.

They had an apartment down the hall, an older woman recommended by the manager. She'd agreed to let them use her apartment as long as she could be around for the action. Lucas had been unhappy, but she'd been firm, and he had finally given in. The woman was there now, opening the door for Sloan. Greave and the van waited on the street, with two more guys from intelligence.

When Koop entered Jensen's building-if he did-Greave and his partners would turn off the elevators from the main-floor control box, and seal the stairs. At the same time, Jensen would go to the woman's apartment, with Sloan, for safekeeping. Del would come off the roof, down the stairs, step into a maintenance closet at the other end of the hall.

When Koop arrived at Jensen's, they'd wait until he'd made a move at the door-tried to unlock it, tried to break it. Lucas would give the word, and Sloan would take him from one end of the hall, Del from the other. Lucas and Connell would come out of the apartment. Four-on-one.

Connell had her pistol out, checking it. She'd fed it with safety slugs. They'd rip massive holes in a slab of meat, but would pretty much fall apart when they hit a wall. She held the gun with the barrel up, her finger alongside the trigger guard, her cheek against the cylinder.

"On the roof. He's on the roof," Del called from Jensen's roof. He was breathing hard: he'd beaten Koop up to the top by thirty seconds. A moment later: "He's on the air conditioner."

Koop pulled himself up, crawled to his protective vent, looked across the street. Sara was there, on the bed, reading. He'd seen her doing this twenty times, prowling through her papers. He put the Kowa scope on her and saw that she was looking through long lists of tables. Her concentration was intense. She turned a page.

She was wearing a white terry-cloth robe, the first time he'd seen it. He approved. It set off her dark, dramatic looks like nothing else would. If her hair had only been wet, she'd have looked like a movie star, on stage...

"He's on the air conditioner," Lucas said quietly to Jensen. She showed no sign that she'd heard, although she had.

"He's got a scope, and he's watching her," Del said. "Christ, he must feel like he's inside the room with her."

"I'm sure he does," Connell murmured into her headset. Lucas looked across at her: the gun was still against her cheek.

Jensen put down her newspaper and rolled off the bed, wandered toward the bathroom. This was not part of the script. "What?" Lucas asked.

She didn't answer, just ran water in the bathroom for a moment, then walked back out. The bathrobe had fallen open. Lucas was looking at her back, but he had a feeling...

Jensen came out of the bathroom. The bathrobe had fallen open, and she was wearing only underpants beneath it. Her breasts looked wonderful against the terry cloth, alternately exposed and hidden. She was apparently upset by something. She spent a few minutes pacing, back and forth across the gap in the curtains, sometimes exposed, sometimes not. All told, it was the best strip show Koop had ever seen. His heart caught in his throat each time she passed the window.

Then she dropped on the bed again, on one elbow, facing him, one breast showing, and began going through the papers. Then she rolled onto her back, bare legs folded, feet flat on the bed, knees up, head up on a pillow, the robe open again, breasts flattening of their own weight...

Koop groaned with the heat of it. He nearly couldn't bear to watch it. Absolutely couldn't bear to take his eyes away.

Lucas swallowed, glanced back at Connell. She wasn't getting any of this. She simply sat, staring sightlessly at a cupboard. He looked back at Jensen, on the bed. Jensen's eyes had flicked toward him once, and he thought he saw the thinnest crease of a smile. Jesus. He began to feel what Koop did, the physical pull of the woman. She gave off some kind of weird Italianate hormone-cooking vibrations. Where'd she'd get the name Jensen? Had to be a married name; whatever was bubbling out of the woman on the bed, it wasn't Scandinavian.

Lucas swallowed again.

If there was such a thing as a politically correct cop manual, this would be specifically outlawed. But Lucas had no objection: if this didn't do it to Koop, nothing would.

Sara got out of bed again, robe open, went into the bathroom, closed the door. When she did this, she usually stayed awhile.

Koop dropped back behind the ventilator duct, tried to light a cigarette. Found that the cigarette was damp, realized that he was soaked with sweat.

He couldn't do this. He had the hard-on of a lifetime. He found his knife, pushed the button. The blade sprang out like a serpent's tongue.

Time to go.

"He's down," Del said. "Holy shit, he's down. He's walking across the roof, he's through the door..."

"Greave, you hear that? It's on you, man," Lucas said.

"We got it," Greave said.

Lucas stepped into the bedroom. "Sara. Time to go."

Jensen came out of the bathroom, the robe tied tight. "He's coming?"

"Maybe. He's off the roof, anyway," Lucas said. She felt vulnerable, intimate; he'd seen the show too. "Get your slippers."

Jensen got her slippers, a bundle of clothes, and her purse, and then they waited, waited, Jensen standing next to Lucas. He felt protective, sort of big-brotherly. Sort of...

"He's out the door," Greave called. "He's crossing the street."

"I'm coming down," Del said.

Greave: "He's got a key for that one, too, he's coming in, he's in the building..."

"He's coming," Lucas said to Jensen. "Go."

Jensen left, running down the hall in her robe, with her purse and clothes, like a kid on her way to a slumber party. Connell, on her feet, moved back to the living room, still with the dreamy look in her eyes, the gun in her hand.

Lucas went with her, caught her arm. "I don't want any dumb-shit stuff. You've got a weird look about you. If you pull the trigger on the guy, you're just as likely to hit Del or Sloan. They'll be coming in a hurry."