Mind Prey

said another programmer, a short redhead with a yellow pencil behind each ear. “We scan in a map of Dakota County, do some lift-up 3-D shit, then program where the helicopters were and do some graphic overlays on the signal strengths, like we’re trying to refine where on the map the signals came from…”
    “Can you do that?” Lucas asked. “I mean, really?”
    The programmer shrugged: “Beats the shit outa me. Maybe, if we had the data. But I was thinking more like, you know, making a cartoon for the TV people.”
    “Jesus, I can see it. We’d do the whole screen in blood red,” Ice said. She looked at Lucas. “It’d look great: they’d eat the whole thing.”
    “That’s what we want,” Lucas said. “It’s only gotta hold water for a couple of days.”
    The receptionist stepped into the doorway of the work room, looked around for Hunt, saw him perched on the end of a work bench. “Barry? We’ve got Channel Three on the phone. They want to do a story.”
    Hunt hopped off the bench. “How long do you guys need?”
    Ice looked around the room, said, “We’ll need a few hours to set up, get everything together.”
    “Could you do it tomorrow morning?”
    “No problem,” Ice said.
    “Excellent,” said Lucas.

18
    G LORIA WAS WALKING up to Mail’s front porch when the sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway. She turned, smiling, and waited. The cop wrote something on a clipboard on the passenger seat, then got out of the car, smiled, nodded politely.
    “Ma’am? Are you the owner?”
    “Yes? Is there a problem?”
    “Well, we’re just checking ownership records of houses down here,” the police officer said. “You’re…” He looked at his clipboard and waited.
    “Gloria LaDoux,” Gloria said. “My husband is Martin, but he’s not home yet.”
    “He works up in the Cities?”
    “Yup.” She thought quickly, picking out the most boring job she could think of. “He’s at the Mall of America? At Brothers Shoes?”
    The cop nodded, made a mark on the board. “Have you seen anything that would be, like, unusual along the road here? We’re looking for a man in a van…”
     
    M AIL WAS A half-mile from the house, the passenger seat full of groceries, when he saw the car in the driveway.
    He stopped on the side of the road and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew the car, a rusty brown Chevy Cavalier. It belonged to a guy named Bob Something, who had a ponytail and a nose ring and bit his fingernails down to the quick. Bob didn’t know where he lived, but Gloria did—and Gloria drove Bob’s car when she needed one.
    Gloria.
    She’d been a good contact at the hospital. She worked in the clinic. She could steal cigarettes, small change, candy, and sometimes a few painkillers. Outside, she’d been trouble. She’d helped him with the Marty LaDoux thing, she’d switched the dental records, she’d collected John Mail’s life insurance when the body was found in the river. Then she started going on about their relationship. And though she’d never made any direct threats, she’d hinted that her knowledge of Martin LaDoux made her special.
    He’d worried about that. He hadn’t done anything, because she was as implicated as he was, and she was smart enough to know it. On the other hand, she had liked it inside. She’d told him that when she was inside, she felt secure.
    And she loved to talk.
    If she’d figured out the Manette kidnapping, she wouldn’t leave it alone. Eventually she’d tell someone. Gloria was always in therapy. She’d never get enough of talking about her problems, of hearing someone else analyze them.
    Shit. Gloria …
    Mail pulled the van off the shoulder and went down the road to the house.
     
    G LORIA C ROSBY FELT expansive. For weeks, she’d felt as though she were living in a box. One day was much like the next as she waited for something to happen, for a direction to emerge. Now it was happening. John had Andi Manette and the kids, she was sure of that: and he must have a plan to get at the Manette money. When they had it, they’d have to leave. Go south, maybe. He was smart, he had ideas, but he wasn’t good at details. She could do the detail work, just like she had with Martin LaDoux.
    Martin LaDoux had been a robo-geek, the worst of the worst, frightened by everybody, allergic to everything, crowded by Others who’d keep him up all night, talking to him. Her mental picture of Martin was of a tall, thin, pimply teenager with a