Invisible Prey

he’s investigating the quilts…then you might be followed.”
    Amity looked in the rearview mirror. “How do you know we’re not being followed now?”
    Jane made a smile. “We can’t be,” she said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because if we are, we’re finished.”
     
    A MITY LOOKED at her, white-faced. “That’s it? We can’t be because we can’t be?”
    “Actually, they’d be much more likely to be following Leslie and me,” Jane said. “If they were, they probably would have picked me up back at Davenport’s house, don’t you think?”
    Amity nodded. That made sense. “Maybe I should drop you off around the block from your place. Just in case.”
    “You could do that,” Jane said. “Just to be perfectly clear about this, you’re now an accomplice in whatever it is that happened to Leslie. I happen to think it was a suicide, and you should think that, too. Because if you ever even hint that I know something about it, well, then, you’re in it, too.”
    “All I want to do is go to Italy,” Amity said.
     
    A MITY DROPPED HER off around the block, and Jane strolled home in the soft night light, listening to the insects, to the frogs, to the rustlings in the hedges: cats on their nightly missions, a possum here, a fox there, all unseen.
    Nobody waiting. And she thought, No Les, no more. She made a smile-look, reflecting at her own courage, her own ability to operate under pressure. It was like being a spy, almost…
     
    W ITH ONE MORE mission that night. She backed the car out of the garage, took the narrow streets out to I-494, watching the mirror, took 494 to I-35, and headed south. The country place wasn’t that far out, down past the Northfield turnoff to County 1, and east with a few jogs to the south, into the Cannon River Valley.
    The country place comprised forty acres of senile maple and box elder along the west or north bank of the Cannon, depending on how you looked at it, with a dirt track leading back to it. Her lights bored a hole through the cornfields on either side of the track, the wheels dropping into washouts and pots, until she punched through to the shack.
    When they first bought it, they talked of putting up a little cabin that didn’t smell like mold—the shack smelled like it had been built from mold—with a porch that looked out over the river, and Leslie could fish for catfish and Jane could quilt.
    In the end, they put up a metal building with good locks, and let the shack slide into ruin. The cabin was never built because, in fact, Leslie was never much interested in catfish, and Jane never got the quilt-making thing going. There was too much to do in the Cities, too much to see, too much to buy. Couldn’t even get the Internet at the shack. It was like a hillbilly patch, or something.
    But a good place to stash stolen antiques.
    She let herself into the shed, fumbling in her headlights with the key. Inside, she turned on the interior lights and then went back and turned off the car lights. She took the amber prescription bottle from her pocket, and rolled it under the front seat of the van.
    From her purse, she got a lint roller, peeled it to get fresh tape, and rolled it over the driver’s seat. They were always fastidious about the van, wearing hairnets and gloves and jumpsuits, in case they had to ditch it. There shouldn’t be a problem, but she was playing with her life.
    She rolled it, and then rolled it again, and a third time.
    Then she took the wad of hair from her pocket.
    Looked at it, and thought, soap . Nibbled at her lip, sighed, thought, do it right , and walked over to the shack and went inside. They kept the pump turned off, so she had to wait for it to cycle and prime, and then to pump out some crappy, shitty water, waiting until it cleared. When it was, she rinsed the wad of hair—nasty—and then patted it dry on a paper towel.
    When it was dry, she pulled out a few strands, pinched them in the paper towel, and carried them back to the van. Two here, curled over the back of the seat, not too obvious, and another one here, on the back edge of the seat. She took the rest of the hair and wiped it roughly across the back of the seat, hoping to get some breaks and split ends…
    Good as she could do, she thought. That was all she had.
     
    J ANE W IDDLER was home in bed at two A.M . There were no calls on her phone, and the neighborhood was dark when she pulled into the garage. Upstairs, she lit some scented candles and sank into the bathtub,