Silken Prey

face and said, “This is Lucas: What’s up?”
    Shrake came back instantly: “Carver’s truck is moving, it’s leaving downtown. Jenkins and I are on it, but we’re gonna need help.”
    Jenkins said, “I was parked in the bottom of the garage, near the exit. I don’t think it’s Carver in the truck: I think it’s Dannon.”
    “Where’s Carver?”
    “Don’t know.”
    Del came up: “Dannon’s truck is still in the garage. Maybe they switched vehicles.”
    “Okay,” Lucas said. “Jane, Sarah, have you seen Carver?”
    Stack came back. “I haven’t, not since before you came up. He went in the back . . .”
    Bradley said, “I saw Dannon maybe ten minutes ago, going into the back.”
    Lucas said, “Okay, you guys take off, help Shrake and Jenkins. Chase them down. Lights and sirens until you get close, then hang back and follow, okay?”
    “Gotcha,” Stack said.
    Lucas asked, “Del, you’re pretty sure Dannon’s truck is still in the garage?”
    “Yeah,” Del said.
    “Okay. Work your way up the parking ramp, see if you can spot him or Carver or the truck. I’m going into the back, see if I can chase them down.”
    “What’s going on?” Del asked.
    “I don’t know—but Shrake, Jenkins, don’t lose that car. Don’t let it get too far ahead of you, either. I want you to be able to see it, if it stops.”
    “That’s a risk,” Shrake said. “He could spot us.”
    “I trust your professionalism that that won’t happen,” Lucas said.
    “Thanks a lot,” Jenkins said. “Shrake, I’m right behind you. Take a right.”
    “Taking a right,” Shrake said.
    “We need to get those goddamn women up here,” Jenkins said.
    “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Bradley said.
    •   •   •
    L UCAS BADGED HIS WAY into the back. Taryn and her closest campaign people, including Green, were going through in a cluster, heading for a back elevator that would take them to the parking ramp. Taryn never looked back but Green did; she nodded and went on. Lucas hurriedly checked the back area—no Carver—and then took the stairs down to the parking ramp.
    He arrived just as the elevator did. Green took the lead, and they walked over to the truck that Dannon had been driving, and Green took the wheel. Schiffer got in the passenger side and Taryn in the back, and the rest of the crew broke for different vehicles, and Lucas, still not seeing Carver, ran toward the truck carrying Green.
    As he did that, Del pulled onto the floor and paused. Lucas ran up to Green’s window and she rolled it down and Lucas asked, “Where’s Carver?”
    Green said, “He and Dannon headed back to the house. We’re having an after-party, they’re setting up there.”
    Lucas was unhappy about that, but nodded, and Taryn called, “Where’s my phone?”
    “Don’t know,” Lucas said, and he turned and walked down the ramp toward Del’s car, putting the handset to his head: “Jenkins . . . I’ve been told that Carver and Dannon were going together out to Grant’s house. Are you sure they weren’t both in the car?”
    “Man, they had to stop at the pay booth, and I was right there. There was a lot of light behind them, coming through the windows. There was only one guy in the car, and that was Dannon. Unless Carver was on the floor or something.”
    “Goddamnit,” Lucas said. “You think you could buzz him?”
    “Yeah. Once.”
    “Is Shrake close enough to pick him up after you buzz him?”
    Shrake: “We’re on 94 North, I’m about a quarter mile behind Jenkins. I could do it for a while, but he’s driving right at fifty-five. If I hang back here, he could get suspicious. We need Jane and Sarah right now.”
    Bradley: “We’re getting on the ramp now. . . . We’re coming.”
    Lucas said, “Jenkins, go ahead and buzz him. We need to know if both of them are in there.”
    Lucas walked down to Del’s car and Del opened the passenger-side door and asked, “What are we doing?”
    “I can’t find Carver. Nobody’s waiting for him, because they think he already went.”
    “Is it possible he split?”
    “You mean, called a cab or took a bus?”
    “Okay, that doesn’t seem likely,” Del said.
    Lucas looked at the phone message again:
Dannon will kill Carver tonight at the hotel and bury him in the perfect graveyard. Best wishes, Taryn.
    “He could be dead,” Lucas said.
    “That would take balls the size of the Goodyear blimp,” Del said.
    “I might have put Carver in the