Sudden Prey

street at the dome. She could knock on the door of the house, maybe get somebody up, get a phone.
    But there had to be a phone right there, across the street. No cars coming.
    She ran across the street and up the approach ramp. A number of car and foot tracks went up the ramp. As she followed them, she brushed past a green pole set into the concrete. The pole was a modernistic phone kiosk, with a phone hanging on the other side—dial 911, no charge—but she never saw it.
    Instead, she went on to the door, opened it, stepped through into the dead space between the inner and outer doors, then pushed through the revolving door onto the concourse. Nobody in sight, just a bunch of wet foot tracks. But she could hear rock music coming from somewhere. Tom Petty, she thought.
    Down the hall she saw a sign: restrooms and phones. She went that way and found a bank of phones. She picked up a phone, listened, got a dial tone, punched in 911. The call was answered instantly.
    “This is Sandy Darling . . .”
    “Ms. Darling, where are you?”
    “I’m at the Metrodome, I’m inside.”
    “Okay. We’ll put you through to Chief Davenport. He’s on his way there.”
    A moment later they clicked through. “Ms. Darling? This is Lucas Davenport. The policeman working with LaChaise—his name was Andy Stadic?”
    “I don’t know,” Sandy said. “They wouldn’t tell me. They said if I turned them in, the cop was paid to come kill me. I’ve got some pictures of him. I took them out of Dick’s pocket.”
    “Okay. I’m two minutes away and we’ve . . .”
    “Listen, I think Dick is going to the hospital where your wife works. You’ve got to get over there first.”
    “Dick LaChaise was killed at the hospital,” Lucas said.
    “He’s dead?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thank God . . .” She said it half to herself, but Lucas picked it up.
    “I’m just about there and we’ve got more people on the way,” Lucas said. “Stadic is in the dome with you, so you’ve got to stay out of sight.”
    “He’s in the dome?” She could hear voices and footsteps.
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Somebody’s coming.”
    “Run,” Lucas said. “Run and hide.”
    Sandy dropped the phone and ran across the hall. Two doors and a stairway led down to the first tier of seats: she pulled on a door, not expecting it to open. It did. She went through, down the stairs to the field of blue plastic seats, and turned left. Below her, on the football field, a half-dozen people were doing something to the dark green carpet. Stretching it? She couldn’t tell.
    She went down six rows, apparently unseen by the people on the field, slid halfway down the row of seats, and lay on her back. They’d have to look down every single row to see her, and she only had two minutes to go. Two minutes, Davenport had said. She thought she saw movement at the peak of the roof, but when she focused on the spot, there was nothing.
    Less than two minutes, she thought.
     
     
     
    STADIC’S PHONE RANG.
    “This is the building engineer, I talked to you . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “She’s hiding third row down, lower tier, right behind the goalposts.”
    He had her. “Which end?”
    “South.”
    “What the fuck end is that?” Stadic snarled. North, south, he couldn’t tell anything in this place.
    “The, uh, hmm, I know: she’s on the opposite end from where they’re working on the rug.”
    Stadic said, “Go on back up there and watch in case she moves,” then turned the phone off and started running. If he could get her. If he could get the phone away from Davenport. Christ, if LaChaise had Davenport’s old lady, they could be there all day. He was still alive, if he could get the girl.
    Stadic rounded the end of the concourse and saw people milling around. One of them yelled, “Sandra Darling. Sandra Darling, where are you?”
    Who was that? That couldn’t be Davenport . . .
    He dodged left, went down the stairs to the first tier. He was halfway around. He went down three rows and started running sideways. He was on the thirty-yard line, the twenty, the ten, but still a way to go.
    A uniformed cop came out of one of the staircases, saw him and yelled, “Andy Stadic. Stadic. Stop there, Andy.”
    They had him.
    No doubt. But he kept going, he was almost to the woman: he could do that, anyway. He could say that he didn’t hear, that he was about to arrest her. He had the .380 in his pocket, if he could drop it, if they found her with