Night Prey

now.
    The impulse was like a hammer. He’d gut the cocksucker right in the driveway. He was messing with Koop’s woman. . . .
    But Koop lingered, unwilling to leave until the guy was out the door. They finally broke apart, and Koop, in a half-crouch, waited for him to go. Jensen was holding his hand. Didn’t want him to go. Tugged at him.
    “Cocksucker . . .” he thought, and realized he’d spoken aloud. Said it again: “Cocksucker, cut your fuckin’ heart out, man, cut your fuckin’ . . .”

    AND THE ROOF access door opened. A shaft of light, shocking, blinding, snapped across the roof and climbed the air-conditioner housing. Koop went flat, tense, ready to fight, ready to run.
    Voices crossed each other, ten feet away. There was a sharp rattle and a bang as the door was pushed open, then closed of its own weight.
    Cops.
    “Gotta be quick.” Not cops. A woman’s voice.
    Man’s voice. “It’s gonna be quick, I can promise that, you got me so hot I can’t hold it.”
    Woman’s voice: “What if Kari looks for the pad?”
    “She won’t, she’s got no interest in camping . . . c’mon, let’s go behind the air-conditioner thing. C’mon.”
    The woman giggled and Koop heard them rattling across the graveled roof, and the sound of a plastic mat being unrolled on the gravel. Koop looked sideways, past the duct toward Jensen’s building. She was kissing the guy good-bye again, standing on her tiptoes in the open door, his hand below her waist, almost on her ass.
    Below him, eight feet away, the man was saying, “Let me get these, let me get these . . . Oh, Jesus, these look great. . . .”
    And the woman: “Boy, what if Kari and Bob could see us now . . . Oh, God . . .”
    Across the street, Jensen was pushing the door shut. She leaned back against it, her head cocked back, an odd, loose look on her face, not quite a smile.
    The woman: “Don’t rip it, don’t rip it. . . .”
    The man: “God, you’re wet, you’re a hot little bitch. . . .”
    Koop, blind with fury, his heart pounding like a trip-hammer, lay quiet as a mouse, but getting angrier and angrier. He thought about jumping down, of taking the two of them.
    He rejected the idea as quickly as it had come. A woman had already died at this building, and a man was in a coma. If another two died, the cops would know something was happening here. He’d never get back up.
    Besides, all he had was his knife. He might not get them both—and he couldn’t see the guy. If the guy was big, tough, it might take a while, make a lot of noise.
    Koop bit his lip, listening to the lovemaking. The woman tended to screech, but the screeching sounded fake. The guy said, “Don’t scratch,” and she said, “I can’t help myself,” and Koop thought, Jesus. . . .
    And Sara Jensen’s lover was getting away. Better to let him go . . . goddamnit.
    He turned his head back to Jensen’s apartment. Jensen went into the bathroom and shut the door. He knew from watching her that when she did that, she’d be inside for a while. Koop eased himself over onto his back and looked up at the stars, listened to the couple on the roof below him. Goddamnit.
    Man’s voice: “Let me do it this way, c’mon. . . .”
    The woman: “God, if Bob knew what I was doing . . .”

19
    GREAVE HAD HIS feet up on his desk, talking on the phone, when Lucas arrived in the morning. Anderson drifted over and said, “A homicide guy in Madison interviewed somebody named Abby Weed. He says she confirmed that she met Joe Hillerod in a bookstore. She doesn’t remember the date, but she remembered the discussion, and it was the right one. She said she spent the night with him, and she was unhappy about being questioned.”
    “Damnit,” Lucas said. He said it without heat. Hillerod hadn’t felt right, and he hadn’t expected much. “Have you seen Meagan Connell?”
    Anderson shook his head, but Greave, still on the phone, held up a finger, said a few more words, then covered the mouthpiece with his palm. “She called in, said she was sick. She’ll be in later,” he said. He went back to the phone.
    Sick. Connell had been plummeting into depression when Lucas left her the night before. He hadn’t wanted to leave—he’d suggested that she come home with him, spend the night in a guest room, but she’d said she was fine.
    “I shouldn’t have mentioned Beneteau asking about you,” Lucas said.
    She caught his arm. “Lucas, you did right. It’s one of the nicer things