Night Prey

“He’s coming?”
    “Maybe. He’s off the roof, anyway,” Lucas said. She felt vulnerable, intimate; he’d seen the show too. “Get your slippers.”
    Jensen got her slippers, a bundle of clothes, and her purse, and then they waited, waited, Jensen standing next to Lucas. He felt protective, sort of big-brotherly. Sort of . . .
    “He’s out the door,” Greave called. “He’s crossing the street.”
    “I’m coming down,” Del said.
    Greave: “He’s got a key for that one, too, he’s coming in, he’s in the building. . . .”
    “He’s coming,” Lucas said to Jensen. “Go.”
    Jensen left, running down the hall in her robe, with her purse and clothes, like a kid on her way to a slumber party. Connell, on her feet, moved back to the living room, still with the dreamy look in her eyes, the gun in her hand.
    Lucas went with her, caught her arm. “I don’t want any dumb-shit stuff. You’ve got a weird look about you. If you pull the trigger on the guy, you’re just as likely to hit Del or Sloan. They’ll be coming in a hurry.”
    She looked up at him and said, “ ’Kay.”
    “Look, I fuckin’ mean it,” he said harshly. “This is no time . . .”
    “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Now we got him. I’m still alive for it.”
    Worried, Lucas left her and moved into the kitchen.
    As soon as Koop opened the door, Lucas would hit it with his body weight. The unexpected impact should blow Koop back into the hallway. Del and Sloan would be coming, and Lucas would jerk the door open, be right on top of the guy. Greave and the other two would be on the stairs, coming up. . . .
    They had him sewn up. They might already have enough for a trial, just with the entry across the street and the peeping.
    But if he cracked Jensen’s door, they had him for everything. If he just cracked it . . .
     
     
     
    KOOP WENT QUICKLY through the building straight to the stairs, pulled open the door and into the stairwell. Before the door shut completely, he thought he heard a flap-click.
    What? He froze, listening. Nothing. Nothing at all. He started up, silently, listening at each landing, then padding up another.
    “He’s taking the stairs,” Greave called. “He’s not in the elevators. He’s on the stairs.”
    “Got it,” said Lucas. “Del?”
    “I’m set.”
    “Sloan?”
    “Ready.”

    KOOP WOUND AROUND the concrete stairs. What had that been, the flap-click? Like somebody running in the stairwell, a footfall and a door closing. Whatever it was, it had come from high in the building. Maybe even Jensen’s floor. Koop got to the top, reached toward the door to the hall. And stopped. Flap-click?
    There was one more flight of stairs above him, going to the roof of Jensen’s building. Was he in a hurry? Not that much, he thought. Cat burglar: move slow . . .
    He climbed the last flight, used his key—Sara’s key—to let himself out on the roof. Nice night. Soft stars, high humidity, a little residual warmth from the day. He walked silently to the edge of the roof. Jensen’s apartment would be the third balcony from the end.
    At the edge of the roof, he looked over. Jensen’s balcony was twelve feet below him. A four-foot drop, if he hung from the edge. Nothing at all. Unless he missed—then it was a forever and a day down to the street. But he couldn’t miss. The balcony was six feet wide and fifteen feet long.
    He looked across the street, at the apartment building where’d he’d spent so many good nights. There were lights, but only a few windows with the drapes undrawn, and nobody in those.
    Twelve feet. Flap-click.
     
     
     
    “WHERE’N THE FUCK is he?” Del asked from his closet. “Greave? You see him?”
    “Must be on the stairs,” Greave said. “You want me to go up?”
    “No-no, stay put,” Lucas said.
    Connell was listening to the conversation through her earplug, and almost missed the light-footed whop fifteen feet away. With Lucas’s “No-no,” in her ear, she didn’t even know where it came from, didn’t think about it much, looked to her right. . . .
     
     
     
    KOOP LANDED IN front of the open balcony door, softly, both feet at once, absorbing the shock with his knees. The first thing he saw, there in the fishbowl, was the blonde with the pistol beside her face, one hand to her head, pressed against the wall, waiting for the hallway door to open.
    Koop didn’t need to think about it. He knew. And he had