Mind Prey

they fix somebody.” His voice changed again, went Hollywood. “But, hey, dude, I gotta run. Got a little pussy lined up after dinner, know what I mean? Catch you later.”
    And he was gone.
    Lucas ran down the hall and through the security doors on the 911 center. Lester was already there, with a man Lucas recognized as an FBI agent. They were looking over the shoulder of one of the operators, who was speaking into a microphone: “Dark Econoline van or like that, probably no farther west than Rice Street…”
    Lester said to Lucas, “Probably 694, east to west. We’re flooding it right now. We’re taking every van off the road.”
     
    T HEY HUNG AROUND Dispatch for fifteen minutes, listening as vans were pulled off the highway wholesale. After a while, they walked back to the Homicide office together and found Sloan with his feet on his desk, looking at a printout.
    “Da clue,” he said, waving the printout at them.
    “Already?” Lucas said. “What do you think?”
    “Could be Bible verses,” Sloan said. “They got that kind of numbers and he used the Bible last time.”
    “Unless he’s cooked up something clever and he’s fucking with us,” Lester said. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the numbers.”
    “Maybe it’s his address,” Sloan said. “And his driver’s license number.”
    “And maybe it’s the Bible,” Lucas said. “I’ve got somebody who can look into that possibility.”
    “Elle,” Sloan said, looking up from the list of clues. “Does a nunnery got a fax machine?”
    “Yeah,” Lucas said, vaguely. He read through a transcript of the tape. “Shit.”
    “What?”
    “Don’t go away,” Lucas said. “Let me fax this to Elle.”
     
    W HEN HE CAME back, five minutes later, he glanced around the Homicide Office. A half-dozen detectives were sitting at desks, talking, looking at maps, eating. Two of them had found a Bible and were paging through it with some perplexity.
    Lucas stepped close to Sloan’s desk and crooked a finger at Lester. Lester stepped over and Lucas said, in a low voice, “There were two things he said. He was fixed—so our guy has been in a state hospital. We’ve gotta be sure that every state hospital employee and every long-term resident has seen the composite.”
    Lester nodded. “Why are we whispering?”
    “’Cause of the other thing,” Lucas said. “Remember how he knew that we’d spotted his gamer’s shirt? Now he knows that Andi Manette tried to send a message to us. He knows. He’s gotta be getting information. He’s gotta.”
    “ From here? ” Lester breathed, looking around.
    “Probably not, but I don’t know. I’d bet it comes out of the family briefings. Somebody out there has a motive to get rid of Manette. Whoever it is, is talking to this guy.”
    Lester scratched his nose, nervous, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “The chief is gonna be delighted,” he said.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t tell her,” Lucas said. “I mean, for her own good.”
    “What’re you thinking about?” Lester said.
    “I’m thinking that we ought to come up with a bunch of little nuggets, different nuggets, bullshit, that we feed through all the different family members—and then we wait to see if anything comes out the other side. Stuff that our guy would react to. If we can find who’s feeding him, we can crack him. Or her.”
    “Christ.” Lester scratched his nose, then his head. Then, “We gotta tell Roux. That’s what she’s paid for.”
     
    R OUX SAID, “I wish you hadn’t told me.”
    “That’s what you’re paid for,” Lucas said, straight-faced.
    Roux sighed and said, “Right. So. Anything critical, we keep to ourselves, though I don’t see how we could keep Manette’s message to ourselves. We wouldn’t have known what it meant.”
    Lester explained Lucas’s idea about feeding false information through the family: Roux grudgingly approved but rolled her eyes to the ceiling and said, “Please, God, don’t let it be Tower.”
    “One other thing,” Lucas said. “We’ve got recorders on everybody’s listed numbers, because we were only looking for incoming calls from a stranger. We should start looking at the private phones, too, the unlisted numbers, the outgoing calls. And we need to be quiet about it.”
    Roux looked at Lester, who nodded and said, “I agree,” and then closed her eyes and said, “They’ll be pissed when they find out.”
    “When they find out, we can explain it,” Lucas