Night Prey

"Think about the body shots again, the photographs," Lucas said. "She was on her side, curled, fetal position, as if she might have been cold, and unconsciously trying to protect herself. But the drugs knocked her down and out. She couldn't get back up. And it worked: they killed her. Not only did it work, there was no sign of what they did. No toxicology. The doors were bolted, the windows were locked, the motion sensors were armed. They killed her with cold."

Greave looked at the kid. The kid said, "Jeez. I helped Ray disco

"They ran the air conditioner after he pulled the tubes, I bet," Lucas said.

"Yeah. They said they was testing it," the kid said.

"Kiss my ass," said Greave, a sudden light in his eye. "They froze the old bat. A batsicle."

"I think so," Lucas said.

"Can I bust them?" Greave asked. "Let me bust 'em, huh?"

"It's your case," Lucas said. "But if I were you, I'd think about playing them off against each other. Offer one of them a plea. They're all assholes, every one of them. Now that you know how they did it, one of them'll turn on the others."

"Froze her," Greave said, marveling.

"Yeah," Lucas said, looking around off the roof at the city. He could see just a sliver of the Mississippi in the distance. "It makes your blood run cold, doesn't it?"

Lucas stopped to talk to Roux, and told her about the batsicle. "Is your butt saved?"

"For the time being," she said. She sounded unhappy. "But you know…"

"What?"

She had a half-inch-thick sheaf of paper in her hands. "We've had seven bank robberies in the last two months, by the same people. There were two here in town, one in St. Paul, four in various suburbs. I'm starting to get some heat from the banking community."

"That's supposed to be the Feds," Lucas said. "The Feds do banks."

"The Feds don't want to run for the Senate," Roux said.

"Oh, my achin' ass…" Lucas groaned.

As he was leaving, he ran into Jan Reed, looking very good. "Oh, my God, I was worried," she said, and she looked worried. She touched his chest with an open hand. "I heard you got banged around pretty badly."

"Not that bad," he said. He tried to chuckle in a manly way, but winced.

"You look beat up," she said. She glanced at her watch. "I've got an hour before I've got to be back at the station… Would you have time to finish that croissant and coffee we started last time?"

Jesus, she was pretty.

"God, I'd like to," Lucas said. "But, you know… I gotta go home."