Silken Prey

right hand, waited as Carver unlocked his door.
    When the locks clicked, he opened the door with his left hand and then climbed inside, keeping his right hand out of sight. Carver looked at the dash as he started the car, and Dannon pulled the door shut with his left hand, and Carver shifted into reverse to back out, looked over his left shoulder, checking for traffic . . .
    Dannon brought the .22 up and shot him in the temple. Carver’s head bounced off the side window and Dannon shot him again, the .22 shots deafening inside the truck, but hardly audible outside. Carver slumped, his face not even looking surprised. Dannon pushed the gear shift back into Park, took a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket and pulled it over Carver’s head, and cinched it around his neck. If Carver weren’t quite dead, the plastic bag would do the job; and it would keep blood out of the car, though there shouldn’t be too much in the way of blood, with the small-caliber bullets going straight into the brain.
    That done—it took fifteen seconds—he got out, climbed in the backseat, and pulled Carver into the back, and tried to wedge him down onto the floor. Carver was too big for that, so he got out again, moved the passenger seat fully forward, and pushed Carver’s head and chest down on that side, folding his legs onto the other side.
    The back windows were darkened, but Dannon walked around to the back of the truck, took out one of the blankets they kept there, for when passengers wanted to sleep on trips, and spread it over Carver’s body.
    He closed the door and walked back to the driver’s side, looking in the side windows as he went: Carver was invisible.
    Two minutes after the shooting, he backed the truck out of the parking slot and started toward the exit. He was forty-five minutes from the perfect graveyard.
    •   •   •
    L UCAS WORKED HIS WAY to the front of the ballroom. Taryn was still talking to people on the stage, but Schiffer had a hand on her back and was moving her toward the stairs. Lucas moved close, where Schiffer could see him, and fixed his eyes on her face and sent her a telepathic message to look at him, and, as usually happened, a few seconds later she glanced his way, recognized him, and frowned. He jabbed a finger at Taryn, and then did it again.
    She turned away, but he knew she’d seen him, and as they got closer to the edge of the stage, she said something sharp in Taryn’s ear, and Taryn frowned and looked down and saw Lucas, turned and said something to Schiffer that he couldn’t hear.
    Lucas kept working toward the end of the stage where a crowd was waiting to talk to and touch Taryn as she came off. She moved slowly down the stairs, then through the crowd, shaking hands and patting shoulders. Lucas kept moving to stay directly in front of her, and eventually she got to him and she said, to the side of his face, so only he could hear, “Now you’re in real trouble, governor or no governor.”
    “Why did you send me that message about Dannon and Carver?” Lucas asked.
    She pulled her head back and said, “What?”
    She didn’t send it
, Lucas thought. It was right there on her face.
    “Do you have your cell phone? You sent me an urgent message from your phone.”
    She said, “What? Why would I . . .” She turned to look behind her and called, “Marjorie . . . Marjorie.”
    One of her campaign people, a short woman in a blue dress, shouldered her way through the crowd; she was carrying a clipboard, a huge tote bag, and two purses.
    Taryn said to her, “Give me my purse.”
    The woman handed the purse over. Someone in the crowd tugged on Lucas’s jacket, and he half turned and saw Bradley there. She put a hand to her ear, miming a handset, and mouthed, “Right now.” Bradley eased back into the crowd and Taryn was saying, “Where’s my phone? Marjorie, where’s my phone?”
    “I . . . I . . . I don’t know.” Marjorie looked frantic. “I never saw a phone.”
    “It was in there,” Taryn said. “I put it there.”
    “You did not send me a text message?” Lucas asked her, virtually speaking into her ear. They looked like they were dancing.
    She said, “No, no . . .”
    Lucas backed away, and Taryn looked after him, puzzled, then dug through her purse again, while talking to Marjorie, and Schiffer began to urge her through the crowd. Lucas got to the edge of the ballroom and stepped behind one of the TV-set stands, put the handset to his