Rules of Prey

the street, Annie McGowan, both with cameramen. Lucas squeezed the Porsche between two squad cars, got out, locked it, and started toward the yellow tape that blocked the motel driveway.
    “Lucas.”
    “Hey, Jennifer . . .”
    “You son of a bitch, you fed her another one.”
    “Who?”
    “You know who. McGowan.” Jennifer turned her head to glare down the street at the other woman.
    “I did not,” Lucas lied. “I was up north at my cabin, for Christ’s sake.”
    “Well, somebody’s feeding her select stuff. She’s laughing up her sleeve at the rest of us.”
    “That’s the way it goes in the news biz, huh?” He crouched and slipped under the tape. “Give me a call tomorrow, I’ll see if I can get something for you.”
    “Hey, Lucas, you’re not still angry? About the Smithe thing?”
    “We have to talk,” he said. “We have to figure out some kind of arrangement. You off tomorrow night?”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “So I’ll take you to dinner somewhere private. We’ll work something out.”
    “Great.” She smiled and he turned and saw Anderson standing in a crowd outside the motel manager’s office.
    “So what?” he asked, taking Anderson by the sleeve.
    “Come on down and take a look.” He led the way toward the rear of the motel.
    “Who found her?”
    “The night clerk,” Anderson said, glancing back. “The girl’d stop by and rap on the window when she was coming and going. She rapped going in, but never came back out. After a while, he kind of stuck his head out and says he saw this crack of light around her door. The killer apparently didn’t pull it all the way shut when he left. That made the clerk curious and he walked down and knocked. And there she was.”
    “Did he see the killer? The clerk?”
    “Uh-uh. He says he didn’t see anybody.”
    “This clerk, is it Vinnie Short?”
    “I don’t know his name,” Anderson said. “He’s short, though.”
    Heather Brown was bound like the others, but unlike the others, her arms were stretched out at right angles to herbody, as though she’d been crucified. The handle of the knife protruded from her chest under her breastbone. Her head was turned to one side, her eyes and mouth open. Her tongue stuck out, obscenely pale. She had long narrow scars on her thighs, white against her too-even machine tan.
    “I don’t know her,” Lucas said. A vice officer walked in. “You know her?” Lucas asked.
    “Seen her around a few times, she’s been on the street a couple years,” the vice cop said. “She used to be over on University, in St. Paul, but her old man OD’d on crank and she disappeared for a while.”
    “You’re talking about Louis the White?”
    “Yeah. See the scars on her legs? That was Louis’ trademark. Used to beat them with coat hangers. Said it never took more than twice.”
    “But he’s dead,” said Lucas.
    “Eight months ago. Good riddance. But I’ll tell you something. His girls did the specialty tricks. Golden showers, bondage, spanking, like that. So this guy may have known her. The way she’s tied up . . . it’d be hard to tie somebody up like that if she wasn’t cooperating.”
    “You guys don’t know who’s running her now?”
    “Nope. Haven’t seen her around for a while,” said the vice cop.
    “We’ve talked to the night clerk but he claims he doesn’t know anything about her,” Anderson said. “Said she’s been around two, three weeks. She’d come into the office, pay for the room, leave. She’d take a room for the night, bring two or three guys back, knock on the window when she was coming and going. She’d remake the bed herself.”
    “How much did she pay for the room?”
    “I don’t know,” the vice cop said. “I could check.”
    “Usually it’s one guy, one rent. They don’t usually take them for the night. Not if the motel knows what’s going on.”
    “This guy knows,” said the vice cop.
    “It’s Vinnie Short?”
    “Yeah.”
    “We have a long relationship. I’ll go talk to him,” Lucas said. He looked around the room again. “Nothing, huh?”
    “Not much. The note.”
    “What’d it say?”
    “ ‘Never carry a weapon after it has been used.’ ”
    “Son of a bitch. He’s not leaving us much.”
    Anderson wandered out. Lucas looked at the body again, then picked up Brown’s bag and looked through it. A cheap plastic billfold contained fifteen dollars, a driver’s license, a social-security card, and a half-dozen photos. He pulled