Easy Prey

drag her credit card through the pump’s card reader, but he caught only a flash of her face. A square chin, tennis-blond hair. He thought of Weather, the woman he’d almost married—should have married, a woman he still thought about—but this wasn’t Weather. Weather was smaller, and he’d know her a mile away, whether her back was turned or not.
    The pump handle jumped under his hand, and clanked. Filled up. He turned off the pump and walked over to the station, got a bottle of diet Coke out of a cooler, and pushed a twenty and a ten through the cash window. The attendant, barely able to tear himself away from the game, sullenly made change one-handed. A college algebra book sat on the counter next to him.
    “You go to St. Thomas?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Bad hours.”
    “Life sucks and then you die,” the kid said. He didn’t smile; he seemed to mean it. His eyes flicked past Lucas’s shoulder and a light soprano voice asked, “Lucas? Is that you?”
    He turned, but he didn’t have to to know who it was. Everything came back with the voice. “Catrin,” he said, and turned.
    She was smiling, and the smile nearly knocked him off his feet. She was forty-four, ten pounds heavier than in college, a little rounder in the face, but with that fine Welsh skin and wild reddish-blond hair. The last time he’d seen her . . .
    “Must be twenty-five years,” she said. She reached out and took his hand, then looked at the attendant and said, “I paid outside.”
    They stepped toward the door, then outside, and Catrin said, “I’ve seen you on television.”
    Lucas was trying to recover, but recovery was difficult. The last time he’d seen her . . . “What, uh, what’re you doing? Now?”
    “I live down in Lake City,” she said. “You know, on Lake Pepin . . .”
    “Married with kids?”
    She grinned at him. “Of course. To a doctor, a family practitioner. Two kids, one of each. James is a sophomore at St. Olaf; Maria’s a senior in high school.”
    “I’ve got one, a daughter,” Lucas said. “Still in elementary school. Her mother and I . . . aren’t together anymore.” Never married; no need to make a point of it. A thought occurred to him, and he looked at his watch. “It’s not four o’clock yet. What are you doing out here?”
    “A friend died this morning,” she said. Her smile had gone wistful; he thought, for a moment, that she might break down. “I knew she was going. Tonight. I sort of dressed up for it.”
    “Jesus.”
    “It was not good. Lung cancer,” she said. “She never quit smoking. I’m just so, just so . . .”
    He patted her on the back. “Yeah.”
    “And where are you going? I don’t remember you as an early riser.”
    “Got a murder,” he said. He felt that he was staring at her, and that she knew it and was amused. Back when, she’d know exactly what she did to him. The effect, he thought, must have been wired in, because it hadn’t changed in twenty-five years.
    “Ah.”
    “You know the model, Alie’e Maison?”
    Her hand went to her mouth in astonishment. “She was murdered?”
    “Strangled.”
    “Oh, my God. Here?”
    “Minneapolis.”
    Catrin looked around the empty gas station pad. “You’re not exactly rushing to the scene of the crime.”
    “Five minutes ain’t gonna make any difference,” Lucas said. “She’s dead.”
    She seemed to step back, though she hadn’t moved. She looked up and said, “You always had a harsh line in you. The cold breath of reality.”
    And she’d just seen a friend die, Lucas thought. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
    “No, that’s okay. That’s just . . . Lucas.” She smiled again, took one of his hands in hers, and patted it. “You better go. Take care of her.”
    “Yeah.” He stepped away, stopped. “You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he said. “You’re one of those women who’ll be gorgeous when she’s ninety.”
    “Nice to think so, when you feel the age coming,” she said. She crossed her arms, hugged herself. “When your friends are dying, and you feel the age coming on.”
     
 
HE LEFT, RELUCTANTLY, turning his head to watch her walk to her car. The Lincoln. Conservative, upper crust. Well-tended.
    Jesus. The last time he’d seen her . . .
    His body ran the Porsche through the gears, out to the interstate ramp, down onto I-94 toward the lights of Minneapolis, his eyes intent on the road and the traffic, his mind stuck with Catrin.
    The last time he’d seen her