Shadow Prey

wasn’t foolproof, but it was pretty good.
    The three-story structure had been built around a central atrium with a skylight at the top. When the men had to move their bowels—a rare event, most of them were winos—they simply hung over the atrium railing and let go. That kept the upper rooms reasonably tidy. Nobody stayed long on the bottom floors.
    When Shadow Love moved in, he brought a heavy coat, a plastic air mattress, a cheap radio with earphones, and his gun. Groceries were slim: boxes of crackers, cookies, a can of Cheez Whiz, and a twelve-pack of Pepsi.
    After the shooting, Shadow Love had run down the stairs, tried to stroll through the lobby, then hurried on to the Volvo. He drove it until he was sure he couldn’t have been followed, and dumped it. He stopped once at a convenience store to buy food and then settled into the hideout.
    There was nothing on the radio for almost two hours. Then a report that Detective Lillian Rothenburg had been shot. Not killed but shot. More than he’d hoped for. Maybe he got her . . . .
    Then, a half-hour later, word that she was on the operating table. And two hours after that, a prognosis: The doctors said she’d live.
    Shadow Love cursed and pulled the coat around him. The nights were getting very cold. Despite the coat, he shivered.
    The bitch was still alive.

CHAPTER
27
    Lucas spent the next day working his net, staying in touch with the hospital by telephone. In the early afternoon, Lily woke up and spoke to David, who was sitting at her bedside, and later to Sloan. She could add little to what they knew.
    Shadow Love, she said. She had never seen his face, but it felt right. He was middle-height, wiry. Dark. Ate sausage.
    That said, she went back to sleep.
    At nine, Lucas called a friend at the intensive care unit: he had been calling her hourly.
    “He just left, said he was going to get some sleep,” the friend told Lucas.
    “Is she awake?”
    “She comes and goes . . . .”
    “I’ll be right there,” he said.
    Lily was wrapped in sheets and blankets, propped half upright on the bed. Her face was pale, the color of notebook paper. A breathing tube went to her nose. Two saline bags hung beside her bed, and a drip tube was patched into her arm below the elbow.
    Lucas’ friend, a nurse, said, “She woke up a while ago, and I told her you were coming, so she knows. Don’t stay long, and be as quiet as you can.”
    Lucas nodded and tiptoed to Lily’s bedside.
    “Lily?”
    After a moment, she turned her head, as if the sound of his voice had taken a few seconds to penetrate. Her eyes, when she opened them, were clear and calm.
    “Water?” she croaked. There was a bottle of water on the bedstand with a plastic straw. He held it to her mouth and she sucked once. “Damn breathing tube dries out my throat.”
    “You feel pretty bad?”
    “Doesn’t . . . hurt much. I feel like I’m . . . really sick. Like I had a terrible flu.”
    “You look okay,” Lucas lied. Except for her eyes, she looked terrible.
    “Don’t bullshit me, Davenport,” she said with a small grin. “I know what I look like. Good for the diet, though.”
    “Jesus, it freaked me out.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    “Thanks for the rose.”
    “What?”
    “The rose . . .” She turned her head away, then back and forth, as though trying to loosen up her neck muscle. “Very . . . romantic.”
    Lucas had no idea what she was talking about, and then she said, “I got through the first fifteen minutes . . . with David. I hurt so bad I wasn’t thinking of you or anything, I was just happy to be here. And we were talking and when I thought of you, the first fifteen minutes were gone . . . and it was okay.”
    “Jesus, Lily, I feel so bad.”
    “Nothing you could do: but you be careful,” she said in her rusty voice. Her eyelids drooped. “Are you getting anywhere?”
    Lucas shook his head. “We’ve got a screen of people around Clay—I still think it’s him. I just haven’t figured out how. We’re watching the dumbwaiter, but that’s not it.”
    “I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes closed and she took two deep breaths. “I’m so damn sleepy all the time . . . . Can’t think . . .”
    And she was gone, sleeping, her face going slack. Lucassat by her bed for five minutes, watching her face and the slow rise and fall of her chest. He was lucky, he thought, that he wasn’t walking beside her coffin across another