Mortal Prey

him.”
    Lucas sat down and looked at Mallard, who had suddenly shriveled. He wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t looking at anything except the tiled floor. Lucas patted him on the shoulder and said, “Just sit for a while.”
    Mallard nodded dumbly, and Lucas got up, found the red-haired agent, and told him to stick with Mallard.
    The red-haired guy nodded and said, “I jerked the AIC out of bed. He’s on his way to the scene, so that’s covered.”
    “All right. I’m going back to the hotel.”
    “Wait for the call?”
    “If it comes.”
    The agent shook his head. “Gotta get the bitch now. Before it was a sport. Now it’s a war.”
    Lucas took a step toward the emergency room door, then turned back. “When you take Mallard out of here, use some other door. She set up this last shooting—it just occurred to me that she could be setting up outside here.” He nodded toward the doors. “She knows we’ll all be here.”
    The agent looked at the doors and then said, “I’ll get some guys to make a quiet sweep.”
    “Do it.”
     
    LUCAS WENT BACK to the hotel to wait; took off his shirt, got into some jeans, tried not to think about Malone. Couldn’t help thinking about her: wanted to get her back, but couldn’t. Finally used the hotel phone to call Weather, and told her.
    “Oh, my God, Lucas. Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine. I mean, I’m fucked up, but I’m not hurt. When I left, they were talking about getting somebody to do the formal identification and sign-off, and I just cleared out of there. I couldn’t stand to go look at her. Jesus, we walked out of here a couple of hours ago. We went down the elevator together, and she was sure we had Rinker in a box.”
    “Maybe you ought to come home.”
    “Can’t now. I’m going to get her.”
    “Unless she gets you.”
    “She’s not mad enough at me. She wouldn’t have gone after Malone if Malone hadn’t been the one talking about her brother, in the paper.”
    “You don’t know that for sure. She might’ve gone over the edge.”
    “I gotta give it some more time. But I’m feeling really…bummed.”
    “But not medically bummed.”
    He knew what she meant. A little problem with clinical depression. “Not like that.”
    “Then I’d say you’re pretty healthy. You should be bummed when a friend is killed. Just wait until Rinker calls. Track her down. Get her.”
    “I’m going to,” he said. “Sooner or later.”
     
    RINKER CALLED a half hour later. The cell phone rang, and he let it ring once more, then picked it up.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m all done with the FBI,” Rinker said. Her whiskey voice sounded blue, depressed.
    “Too late for you, Clara,” Lucas said. “They’ll never quit now. The guy that gets you is gonna be a hero, and his career will be made for life. People are going to make you into their hobby.”
    “Well, good luck to them,” Rinker said. “This never would have happened if they hadn’t killed my brother.”
    “Nobody wanted your brother to die. Malone took a lot of shit after it happened. There was gonna be an inquiry.”
    “Yeah, right, a cop inquiry. Were they planning to raise him up, like Lazarus?”
    “No, but…”
    “So what you’re saying is that a memo would get written.”
    “Nobody wanted him to die. Nobody deliberately pulled a trigger on him.”
    “Might as well have. I told you myself, he wasn’t right.” Lucas couldn’t think of anything to say, and after a moment of silence, Rinker continued. “I’m thinking about getting out. You think they would chase me to Chile?”
    “I think they’d chase you to fuckin’ Mongolia. And I’ll tell you what, if I were you…when they catch me, I wouldn’t give up. I’d put a gun in my mouth. They’ll pen you up for ten years in a concrete box the size of a phone booth, and then they’ll stick a needle in your arm and kill you. Better to go quick.”
    “I don’t suppose you’re thinking of going home.”
    “No. I’ll be here as long as you are.”
    “My problem with you is, you’re lucky.” Again, a moment of silence. Then: “This fiancée of yours, is she pretty good-looking?”
    “Pretty good,” Lucas said. “We’re gonna do the whole thing, except not a Catholic wedding because she’ll be a little heavy by then, and besides, she doesn’t care for the Church. But we got a wild-hair Episcopalian place, which is almost like Catholic, and we’re gonna tie the knot up with a priest and flower girls and the whole