Easy Prey

is about as far from here as you can get and still be on Earth. It’ll take him a few days to get here.”
    “How is he?” Lucas asked.
    “Devastated. I’d like to get the thing . . . done with.”
    “I’ll see about it,” Lucas promised. “This thing with Plain . . . when did that end?”
    “A year ago.”
    “A year? I thought it might be more recent . . . the way he acted.”
    “Time was not a big deal with Plain. Everything was right now. He could read a history book about Rome and get angry about the Roman empire.”
    “Tell me about Alie’e,” Lucas said. “Was there anybody that she talked about? Anybody who might be a little over the edge?”
    “Are you questioning me?” But she smiled, and when she did, her torn-paper face was beautiful, tough and vulnerable at once.
    “No, no. Of course not. And if you want to talk about something else, that’s fine. But I start brooding about this kind of stuff. You know, why ? Most people are freaked out by the idea of shoplifting. If you get somebody killing several people, he’s either completely psychotic, delusional, nuts, living in a different world, listening to God . . . or he thinks he’s got a reason. This guy we’re looking for, he thinks he’s got a reason. So there should be some connection to Alie’e. Somewhere, a connection.”
    “Her dad . . . was weird. He came on to me a couple of times. I often thought he was a little . . . wrong. Not a killer, but he, I think . . . I don’t know.” She lifted her hands to her temples. “His relationship to Alie’e and the other girls, he tried to act paternal, but he was always looking at them. . . . If you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah. He was turned on.”
    “Yeah. And Alie’e’s mom wasn’t much of a prize, either. My mom didn’t care what I did for a living; she thought the earth owed me one, and let it go at that. But Lil was living through Alie’e . . . and I think she knew about Lynn’s interest in sex.”
    “You think Lynn might have abused Alie’e?”
    “No. Nope. I think Alie’e would have told me, and I think I would have seen it in her, the way she acted around her father. No, maybe it was just my expectations. Somebody’s a dad—you don’t think of his standing around trying to get a shot at the asses of his daughter’s friends.”
    “Happens all the time,” Lucas said. “I’ll do it. For sure.”
    “But he was creepy about it.”
    “So . . . no ideas.”
    “I told you before, I really think you’ve got to look at the people on the Internet. Those people . . .”
    “We’ve got somebody checking that, a computer guy named Anderson. If you can think of anything specific along those lines, call him. But the thing is, when he ran Alie’e’s name through Alta Vista, he got 122,000 matches. We’re trying to narrow them down.”
    “What’s Alta Vista?”
    “A search engine on the Net. You can look for names and so on.”
    “Okay. Well, I’ll think about it. You know all about her brother, Tom.”
    “We’re looking into him,” Lucas said.
    “He’s an amazing guy. From what she said.”
    “Is he nuts?”
    “She didn’t think so. She thought he was holy,” Jael said.
    “How bright was she?” Lucas asked.
    “Mmm, you’ve got to be smarter than average to make it as a model, but not a lot smarter. She wasn’t intensely bright.”
    “So why were you hanging out with her?”
    She smiled. “I thought everybody knew that.”
    “They know you were sleeping with her, but I thought there had to be a better reason.”
    “There wasn’t,” Jael said. “She was deep into herself, into feeling good. Into . . . feeling. That’s what she did best, and she spread it around. She could make you discard everything else and feel good. The sex was wonderful. Very intimate and very playful and very sexual. I mean, I can’t really explain it to you, because you don’t know what I’m talking about and you’re not in a position to find out.”
    “Did her appearance have anything to do with it? And her being famous?”
    “Probably. There was a whole package. When you were with her, you felt sexy and important and wicked and fun. And she’d make you forget everything else and just feel. That’s why she did those short pops: It was another aspect of feeling for her.”
    “So what about her boyfriend, Jax? What’d he think about all this? Sleeping with other women.”
    She shrugged. “Jax carried her bags. And slept with her every once in a while.