Certain Prey

Hale’s earlobe with her tongue, which she did every few minutes, and which had a profound effect on him. After the third dance, he growled, “Let’s get out of here.”
    “No,” she said, in her best cat voice. “You’ve got to be patient .”
    Sherrill and Black watched from a balcony seat as Allen and Carmel moved around the dance floor, stopping now and then to talk with friends; all of the friends, Sherrill decided, had a certain slickness that she disliked. She mentioned it to Black.
    “I think they teach you that in law school,” Black said.
    “Hey: I know some pretty nice lawyers.”
    “So now we’re gonna be sincere?”
    “No, I was just wondering. There’s this subset of people who look slick. See? Look at the guy in the white coat, and the woman he’s with. Slick.”
    “They spend too much time looking at themselves, without being professionals,” Black said. “Professionals— actors—can look perfect, and look right at the same time. These guys try to look perfect, and they just look slick.”
    “Much more of this surveillance chitchat and I’ll throw up.” R INKER SCOUTED the Davises’ neighborhood, saw nothing at all. Of course, if it were a trap of some kind, the cops might be in an apartment across the street or up the stairs and she’d never know until they were kicking down the doors.
    But it didn’t feel that way; it didn’t have the creepy close feeling of movies, when a guy was in hiding. And somehow, she thought, it would feel that way. There’d be that peculiar stillness of the moment when you hide in somebody else’s house, and they walk in . . . and they know. She didn’t feel that here.
    Rinker had taken two FedEx boxes from a FedEx stand, and taped them together. She left the car a block from the Davis apartment—she noted the lights under the window shades, so somebody was home—and walked back, carrying the box. A guy was following his dog down the other side of the street, paying no attention to her.
    Rinker turned in at the house, jogged up the stoop, and stepped inside the entry and stopped. She could hear a stereo from up the stairs, nothing from the back, from the Davis apartment. She moved closer to the Davis door, listened. The rhythm of voices—or one voice, a woman’s voice. She glanced around, took the pistol out of her belt and stuck it under her left arm, pinned to her side. She knocked once.
    The rhythm of the voices stopped, and she heard footsteps. The door opened on a chain, and a woman peeked out. “Yes?”
    “We got a FedEx upstairs for you, the guys did. They forgot to bring it down, so I did,” Rinker said cheerfully. She bounced the box in her hand. The woman didn’t hesitate, said, “Oh, thanks. Just a minute,” and pushed the door shut and began to work the chain. Rinker quickly stooped and put the box on the floor, then reached up and pulled the nylon down over her face, pulling it down like a condom.
    The woman opened the door and the pistol was there, pointing at her head, and Rinker whispered, harshly, “Step back or I’ll kill you.”
    Jan Davis, stricken, hand at her face, eyes wide, stepped back. “Please don’t hurt us.”
    Rinker kicked the box into the apartment, pushed the door shut and rasped, “If a cop comes in now, I’ll start shooting and we’ll all be dead. Are the cops watching this place?”
    Davis’s head was wagging back and forth, a no, and a little-girl called out, “Mom? Who’s that?”
    “Get her out here,” Rinker said, flicking the tip of the pistol toward the bedroom door.
    “You’re the . . .”
    “Yeah. I’ve never killed a kid in my life, and I hope I never have to. But you gotta get her out here. Then I’m gonna ask you two questions, and I’m gonna tell you something—if you answer the questions right—and then I’m gonna leave.”
    “You’re going to kill us . . .”
    “Mom?”
    “If I were gonna kill you, I wouldn’t be wearing a mask,” Rinker said. “Now get her out here.”
    Davis stared for another moment, then said, “Heather, honey? C’mere, honey.”
    The girl stuck her head out of a bedroom a minute later. She was wearing yellow underpants and a yellow shirt, and was carrying a Curious George monkey doll. “Mom?”
    “C’mere, honey.” Davis backed toward her daughter, groping for her hand. The girl looked at Rinker and said, “Did you kill those people?” Her eyes were as wide as her mother’s had been.
    Her mother said, “Shhh,” and Rinker