Chosen Prey

her mouth. “Oh, no. Oh my God.”
    “Yeah. I think Terry Marshall probably picked him up. It’s about sixty-forty that Qatar’s dead already.”
    “Lucas . . . why did you . . .?”
    “Because I wasn’t sure. And even if I thought so, I’m not sure it’s not the right thing. What if Qatar gets out in ten or twelve years and starts killing again? That could happen.”
    “Yes, but Lucas—this isn’t right. This is awful.”
    “But Qatar—”
    “Lucas, this is not about that asshole. This is about Terry. If he’s done this, it’s gonna be terrible for him. The heck with Qatar, it’s Terry .”
    He looked at her and said, “It’s only about sixty-forty that Qatar’s dead. If he’s not, it’s about sixty-forty that I know where they’re going.”
    Weather said, “The graveyard.”
    “That would fit with the way Terry’s mind works, I think.”
    “Lucas, you’ve got to call somebody,” she said. “Lucas, you can’t let this happen.”
    Lucas put his hands to his head, sitting on the bed, frozen. Then, suddenly, looking up: “All right. I’m going. I can beat them down there. The alarm went off fifteen minutes ago. Maybe I can work something, maybe I can, if there’s time, maybe . . .”
    He was out of bed, pulling on his pants, boots. “Gimme my sweatshirt, give me my sweatshirt . . .”
    They stumbled all the way through the house, Lucas pulling on clothes, out to the garage. He climbed into the Porsche as the garage door rolled up, and she shouted, “Go! Go!”

29
    L UCAS FUMBLED HIS flasher up on the dash and plugged it in, and with the harsh red light cutting holes through the night, he followed it down along the Mississippi, across the river by the airport, across the Minnesota River at the Mendota Bridge, and then south on Highway 55, all the time running the numbers. Marshall wouldn’t be driving more than a mile or two over the speed limit, to avoid any possible traffic cops—it was early for traffic cops, but the first trickle of the rush was beginning, and Marshall wouldn’t want to take any chances.
    And that gave Lucas a chance. Giving Marshall a twenty- or twenty-five-minute head start—Marshall was starting farther into town than Lucas was, and facing more traffic—he and Lucas should arrive at the graveyard about the same time. What would happen there, Lucas didn’t know; and if Marshall wasn’t there, if he’d just decided to drop Qatar out in the woods somewhere, in some predug hole, then it was over.
    Cell phone, he thought. Maybe he should call the Goodhue County sheriff, get them to send a car. But then, if Marshall wasn’t there, they’d know that Lucas knew who had taken Qatar. . . . He touched his jacket pocket for the phone, still thinking about it. The pocket was empty. The phone was back on the charger on his desk.
    One option gone.
    He touched his belt: The .45 was there. He’d taken it without thinking. But what for?
     
    T HREE PEOPLE WOULD know about all of this—he and Weather, and Marshall—and Del would probably figure it out if he ever sat down to think about it. There would never be any proof. Marshall would be too careful for that. What to do if he got there too late, with Qatar already dead? Just keep going?
    He had to run. . . .
    He went through the suburbs, through the red lights and around shying cars, watching for movement along the sides of the roads, of people unaware. If he hit another car at this speed, the Porsche would be flattened into a hubcap; if he hit a wandering human, he would instantly convert that human to hamburger.
    All the way, calculating, wondering: He hadn’t told Weather or anyone else about the laptop. If he’d taken the laptop downtown after he found it, had processed it, they could have rearrested Qatar on the Aronson charge and he probably wouldn’t have made bail. Marshall’s whole concept would have been short-circuited.
    But then what happens to justice? Ten or fifteen years in jail, with Qatar coming out all clear, even more careful, to kill again? Some of them, some of the Qatars, never stopped. Lucas was still uncertain of the equities. If it weren’t for Weather, he might have let it go. . . .
     
    H E HIT THE blacktop north of the Pine Creek crossing with enough daylight to see it clearly. He slid through the turn and jumped back on the gas, then cut out on the gravel road. Close now; more light. He saw the DNR parking area coming, and sitting in