Rules of Prey

the bonds. He laid the point of the knife just below her breastbone and felt the orgasm rising up within him as he pressed the knife up and in. The girl’s eyes opened,straining, straining, and then the light went out and it all stopped for her. The maddog peered into her eyes as the light faded, felt the waves of the orgasm receding and the pressure lifting off his mind.
    It had gone very well, he thought. Very well.
    He stepped back from the bed and looked at her. Not pretty, he thought, but there was something beautiful in her attitude. He stripped off the rubber and tossed it in the toilet and flushed and began to get dressed, stopping frequently to look at his work. Inside, he rejoiced.
    When he was dressed, he took a last long look, reaching out to stroke her cooling leg, and started toward the door.
    “Whoops,” he said aloud. “Can’t forget the note.” He fished it out of his jacket pocket and dropped it on her body.
    Outside, it was a beautiful crisp fall night. He walked across the blacktopped parking lot, risking a quick glance toward the motel office. The clerk was visible inside the window, the blue light of a television bathing his face. He didn’t look out. Keeping his head carefully averted, the maddog walked down the sidewalk and around the corner, where he pulled off the jacket and hat. He rolled the jacket with the hat inside and tucked it under his arm. He turned another corner and was at his car. He climbed inside and tossed the jacket on the floor of the car. If anybody had seen him get in the car, it would not have been a man in a red jacket wearing a billed hat.
    He drove six blocks back toward the loop and stopped at a bar. A police car, flashing red lights but without a siren, sped past down Hennepin while he had the first drink. He nursed it, then nodded at the bartender for a refill. When he came out, an hour had passed since he’d left the motel room.
    “Another unnecessary risk,” he told himself. “I won’t drive by, though. Only close enough to watch.”
    From a traffic signal a block away, he could see at least four police cars at the motel. As he waited for the light to change, a television truck rolled up to the motel and a dark-haired girl got out of the passenger side. He recognized herat once, Annie McGowan, the woman who said he was impotent.
    A car horn sounded from behind and he glanced in the rearview mirror and then at the traffic signal, which had turned green. He turned the corner and pulled over to the curb. McGowan was talking to a cop and the cop was shaking his head. A group of people walked down the sidewalk past the maddog’s car, attracted by the police lights and the television truck.
    The maddog was tempted to join them, but decided against it. Too risky; he’d taken risks enough. Besides, there was enough of a glow from the killing that he should go home where he could relax and enjoy it. A long hot bath, close the eyes, and rerun the part where the light went out in Heather Brown.

CHAPTER
14
    It had been one of the best weekends of the year, with warm days and crisp, cold nights. Brilliant color lingered in the woods, and the faint scent of burning birch logs hung in the air.
    “We’ve got at least another week for the leaves. Maybe two,” Carla said. A stand of maples on the north end of the lake was a flaming orange. “Too bad you don’t have more maples.”
    “I thought about that when I bought the place,” Lucas said. “I didn’t want maples. They’re pretty, but I wanted the pines. They give the place a North Woods feel. A little further south, down in the maples and oaks, it feels like farm country.”
    They drifted along the shoreline, working the bucktail lures around emergent weeds, docks, and fallen timber. “There are some people who’d say it’s already too late for bucktails, but I don’t hold with that. And they’re more fun to throw,” Lucas said.
    In three hours of casting they caught five northern pike and had two musky follows.
    “Bad day for musky, huh?” Carla said as they headed back to the dock.
    “Hate to tell you this, but that was a good day. Two follows is all right. Lots of days, you don’t see any.”
    “Great sport.”
    “Don’t have to fool around with cleaning any fish, anyway,” he said with a grin.
    “When do I have to leave here?” she asked.
    “What do you mean, have to leave ?”
    “I assume that the hot pursuit by the television people will have tapered off by now. I could go back.