Winter Prey

and stay inside. You’ve got dead bolts?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then lock the doors,” he said. “You’ve got a lock on your bedroom door?”
    “Yes, but just a knob lock. It’s not much.”
    “It’d slow somebody down,” Lucas said. “Lock it. How about a gun. Do you have a gun?”
    “A .22 rifle. My dad shot squirrels off the roof with it.”
    “Know how to use it? Got any shells?”
    “Yes, and there’s a box of shells with the gun.”
    “Load it and put it under your bed,” Lucas said. “We’ll talk tomorrow morning. Wake me up when you get up.”
    “Lucas, be careful.”
    “ You be careful. Lock the doors.”
    He went to the entry, pulled open the inner door. As he was about to go out, she caught his sleeve, tugged him back, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, and in almost the same movement, gave him a little shove that propelled him out through the storm door.
    “See you in the morning,” she said and closed the door. He waited until he heard the lock snap, then went back down the walk to the truck, still feeling the fleeting pressure of her lips on his.
    “She okay?” Climpt asked.
    “Yeah. Gimme the flashlight. In the glove compartment.” Climpt grunted, dug around in the glove compartment, handed him the flash, and Lucas said, “I’ll be right back.”
    The snow around the house was unbroken as far back as he could see. A low railed deck stuck out of the back, in front of a long sliding-glass door. A bird feeder showed hundreds of bird tracks and the comings and goings ofa squirrel, but nothing larger. As he waded ponderously through the snow, returning to the truck, another pod of snowmobiles roared by on the lake, and Lucas thought about the sled used in the LaCourt attack.
    Climpt was standing next to the truck, smoking an unfiltered Camel. When he saw Lucas coming, he dropped the cigarette on the driveway, stepped on it, and climbed back into the passenger seat.
    “Find anything?” he asked as Lucas got in.
    “No.”
    “We could get somebody down here, keep an eye on her.”
    “I’m gonna come back and bag out in her guest room,” Lucas said. “Maybe we can figure something better tomorrow.”
    Lucas backed out of the drive and they rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Climpt, slouching against the passenger-side door, drawled, “That Weather’s a fine-looking woman, uh-huh. Got a good ass on her.” He was half-grinning. “She’s single, I’m single. I’m quite a bit older, of course, but I get to feeling pretty frisky in the spring,” Climpt continued. “I been thinking about calling her up. Do you think she’d go out with an old guy like me? I might still be able to show her a thing or two.”
    “I don’t believe she would, Gene,” Lucas said, looking straight out through the windshield.
    Climpt, still smiling in the dark, said, “You don’t think so, huh? That’s a damn shame. I think she could probably show a fellow a pretty good time. And it’s not like puttin’ a little on me would leave her with any less of it, if you know what I mean.”
    “Stick a sock in it, Gene,” Lucas said.
    Climpt broke into a laugh that was half a cough, and after a minute, Lucas laughed with him. Climpt said, “Looking at you when you went up to her door, I’d say you’re about half-caught, my friend. If you don’t want to get all-caught, you better be careful. If you want to be careful.”

    Carr was gray-faced, exhausted. Old.
    “I’ve got to get back out there, on the search line,” he said when Climpt and Lucas walked into his office. Lacey was with him and four other deputies. “It’s a mess. We got people who want to help who just aren’t equipped for it. Not in this cold. They’ll be dying out there, looking for the kid.”
    “The kid’s dead if he’s not inside,” Climpt said bluntly.
    “And if he’s inside somewhere, looking for him outside won’t help.”
    “We thought of that, but you can’t really quit, not when there’s a chance,” Carr said. “Where’s this photograph Henry’s been telling me about?”
    Lucas took it out of his pocket and flipped it on Carr’s desk. Carr looked at it for a moment and said, “Mother of God.” To one of the deputies, he said, “Is Tony still down the hall?”
    “Yeah, I think so.”
    Carr picked up the phone, poked in four numbers. They all heard a ringing far down the hall, then Carr said, “Tony? Come on down to my office, will you?”
    When he’d hung up, Lucas said, “I had dinner