Wicked Prey

stopped when Briar broke down again, weeping. Shafer said, “I could never be a cop, you know it? Doing this to a little kid. Why don’t you pick on somebody a little older?”
    “Because somebody a little older isn’t part of a murder gang,” Jenkins snarled at him.
    “I’m not part of a murder gang,” Briar wailed. “A guy gave me a hundred dollars to come over here and tell Justice that he was supposed to come to Half-Way Books and give him a ride . . .”
    “He’s got a truck,” Lucas said.
    “I didn’t know that,” she lied. She had them going, she could feel it. Mostly the truth, with a couple small variations, like Letty had taught her. “I just wanted a hundred dollars.”
    “What’d the guy look like?” Lucas asked. “The guy who gave you a hundred dollars?”
    “Tall, thin, black hair, black mustache, blue eyes, really strong-looking. The woman was about as tall as I am. She had dark hair and . . .” She put her hand to her mouth, in sudden comprehension. “You thought I was her . They tricked you.”
    “How did you meet this guy?” Shrake asked. He was the bad cop. “Why would he give you a hundred dollars?”
    “I didn’t know why. He just said. I met him at Juicy’s.”
    “You’re too young for Juicy’s,” Shrake said.
    “Not for a hamburger. I know a waitress there, but she wasn’t working, but sometimes she gives me a hamburger for free. If I get hungry.”
    “So you were hustling a hamburger and this guy suddenly offers you a hundred bucks?” Jenkins was skeptical.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It sounded weird to me, too. I thought maybe . . . but he said I wouldn’t have to do anything. Just pick Justice up and take him to Half-Way Books.”
    Half-Way Books was a comic and games store halfway between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
    “Where’d you get the van?” Lucas asked.
    “I borrowed it from a friend,” she said.
    “A crippled friend?” More skepticism.
    “That’s right. He gets a check from the government and sometimes he pays me to drive him around,” she said. “I know how to run the power ramp out the side of the van and I push him up and down the ramps to his house.”
    “What’s your friend’s name?” Shrake asked.
    She shook her head. “I don’t want to get him in trouble.”
    Shafer grinned at her and gave her the thumbs-up. “Good for you. Take care of your friends.”
    “Shut up,” Jenkins told him. To Briar: “Where do you go to school?”
    “I dropped out. I’m working on my equivalent,” she said. She let them see this lie, because she knew they expected it.
    “Why’d you drop out?”
    “I had to run away because my mom’s boyfriend kept trying to fuck me,” she said.
    “You let him?” Shafer asked, suddenly serious.
    “Of course not,” she said to him. “That’s why I ran away.”
    Jenkins looked at Shafer and shook his head, and then asked Briar, “You a hooker?”
    “Why are you so mean to me?” she whimpered.
    * * *
    LUCAS SAID, “You sit on that bed and if you move your ass one inch, we will take you down and put you in jail.” To Jenkins and Shrake: “Let’s talk.”
    Out in the hall, Jenkins said, “She’s a hook, and they picked up on that, and the fact that she looks like Diaz, and they sent her in here to see if anybody would jump. We did and they’re gone.”
    Jenkins: “Now what?”
    “We talk to the Secret Service, let them make the call,” Shrake said.
    “They don’t want Shafer,” Lucas said. “Why would they want the girl?”

    INSIDE THE motel room, Justice Shafer made his move; not having ever made one before, it was nervous and tentative. “Why’s a good-looking woman like you running errands for assholes?” he asked.
    “I wasn’t sure he was an asshole,” Briar said. She looked him over. “Are you a cowboy?”
    He laughed, and she noticed that he had very white teeth. His best feature, maybe. “Yeah, I sat on top of some horses. Mostly, though, it was Gators.”
    She was puzzled. “Alligators?”
    “No, a Gator . It’s a John Deere four-wheeler. Or six-wheeler. Mostly use them instead of horses. Or I did. Mostly used for hauling shit around a ranch.”
    “I used to draw horses,” she said.
    “That’s cool.” He had a feeling that he was making progress, which was unprecedented. “I like the way you handled those cops. Those guys are jerks.”
    “I have a talent for finding assholes,” she said, with the thinnest possibility of a smile. Then, “You really