4
(Warning: spoiler alert for the ending of Book 2 in the Prey series)
On his way out of the office later, he'd stopped at a desk down the hall and asked where the nearest pay phone might be. She'd smiled up at him with such a wide white smile – and then had even gotten up from her desk to walk him over to the phone hanging on the wall, that he couldn't help noticing. She'd even grabbed onto his arm, walking close – closer than she'd needed to for something like this.
And from his height over the top of her, his eyes had swept down along her figure. Quite stunning, actually. Curvy in her close-fitting dress, with high heels that made her legs look long; narrow waist, dark hair, dark eyes, and the big white smile. A fragrance that'd lingered after she'd stopped in the hall. Well...
He'd watched her walk back to her desk. Thought about going back to leave his card with her, but couldn't think of a reason she'd have needed it.
Losin' your touch, man, he thought. Been out in the woods too long.
Lucas dropped a quarter in the slot at the top of the phone and called Elle's number. A young woman answered. Didn't recognize her voice. Maybe someone new or just covering the phone for the lunch hour. He asked for Elle, by her other name, Sister Mary Joseph.
"Lucas?" He could hear her smiling on the other end of the phone.
"That's me," he said, smiling back. "I'm in town."
"Excellent. Why don't you run over. I have a class at two, but I'd love to see you."
The Porsche thrummed underneath him, quick and agile in the midday traffic. At a light, a squad rolled up next to him and he looked over. Two cops inside. The window rolled down and a craggy voice from the driver's side came out of the dark.
"That you, Davenport?"
"Ya got me, Officer." He smirked into the car and bent down a bit to see inside. The closer one he didn't recognize, but the bear-shaped one behind the wheel he'd seen around.
"Thought I recognized the Porsche. Jesus, who's got you in his pocket, Davenport?"
"Only room for one of us, I'm afraid," he said, holding up his hands like hey, sorry man, I got there first.
"Take care-a yaself, huh?" The squad rolled forward then, and swung left around the corner on the light, while Lucas waited for the green.
He thought about the brunette back in the office, how she'd held onto his arm like that. Big, wide smile and the dark, smoky eyes. He lifted his arm and gave a sniff to the sleeve where she'd held him. Must have spritzed her wrists with her fragrance, too. He could still catch it, and a warm flush came over him, out of nowhere.
A car horn took him out of his next thoughts, and he looked back there, in his rearview mirror, muttering.
Patched out in first, blowing through the intersection, and down past the traffic on his right for a quarter-mile, then turned into the street that ran next to one of the lots for Elle's building. Pulled into Visitor Parking, got out, and locked the Porsche before he ambled over to the steps.
Outside her office, Lucas stopped at the desk and introduced himself.
"I'm Lucas Davenport, from – " and he'd started to say "Minneapolis PD" but stopped. Wasn't true, anymore. Well, not right at this moment, anyway. The fresh-faced young woman tipped her head to the side, waiting for the rest.
"From – around," he said, gesturing with his arms. Her eyes narrowed, a little confused. He would've been, too.
"She's expecting me," he said. Her black nun's habit covered everything else but her young sweet face, so you couldn't really focus on anything more. A spray of freckles had landed on her nose and cheeks. Violet eyes. Serious. Innocent. New in this world, as if suddenly transported from some gentle planet somewhere else in the Universe. He lingered over her eyes.
"You can go right in, Mr. Davenport." She smiled warmly at him, and gestured toward the door.
Elle was sitting at her desk, plinking on the keys of her IBM. She looked up when the door opened and broke into another wide smile. He almost didn't notice the spray of scars and pock-marks left on her face from a scourge of acne as a teen. The flash of her blonde-haired, fair-skinned self, back when they'd spent their long summer days together, dropped in front of his mind's eye. Like always, and he brushed it away.
"Lucas!" He didn't wait for her to come around to his side of the desk, but walked over and bent to peck her on the forehead. She grabbed him around the arms with her large hands and gave him a squeeze. He ambled over to his usual seat and dropped down, crossing one long leg over the top of the other one.
She let him settle in a minute before she started with him.
"So, how is it?"
No use trying to hide anything from Elle. She could see right through him. Too much history there. That's why he hadn't been here, before now. Wasn't really ready for it. Not sure he was, now, either. He took a deep breath and let it out, staring at her desk.
"Oh, like that," she said, frowning. The white rim of her veil corralled the frown-lines, and made them stand out even more.
"Still at the lake?"
"Yeah. It's quiet up there," he said. She nodded and sat back against the back of her chair, pushing a stack of papers to one side as if they were getting in her way.
"Plans?"
Lucas dropped his bent leg down off the other, and then switched sides, his left on top this time.
"Had a meeting this morning."
"Morning? You? That must have been – challenging," she said, smiling at him with her soft, amused eyes. He smiled a small smile and nodded, eyes back down on her desk, fast, still not wanting for Elle to see right in, inside him.
"So, are you going to tell me, or do you want me tuh guess?" Every once in a while, he could still hear the Minnesota in her speech. She'd done a pretty good job of erasing most of it, but when she got hot under the collar, er– scapular, it crept back in.
"Just a formality – you know, a check-off meeting – before I go back." He fidgeted. Thought about crossing his legs the other way, but didn't.
"Are you? Going back?" He was starting to wish he hadn't stopped by. Felt like an inquisition. He'd been hoping for something else.
"Dammit, Elle!" Then, "sorry, Sister." He was losing it. Shouldn't have come. Elle didn't deserve him like this. Nobody did.
"Lucas," she said in a softer tone. "I'm sorry. I sound like the Inquisition. Sorry. I'm worried about you. You just dropped out after all that – business. Disappeared. Nobody knew what was going on with you, and you aren't exactly the most – stable – man I know," she said, nearly a whisper at the end.
"You thought maybe I'd off myself?" he said, mercilessly. Now he was looking her straight in the eyes.
In slow, serious syllables, back:
"That would be a sin, Lucas." It hadn't come out like a religious pronouncement. More like the kind of sin meaning a "shame", instead. She went on.
"Look, you got the guy. He's behind bars where he can't hurt anybody else. And God-willing, when he has his trial, he'll go away for the rest of his years, Lucas. I pray for his soul," she said.
Beautiful eyes when she said stuff like that.
"Maybe it's time for you to be around people again. Why don't you come down to the game tomorrow?" She sounded like a mother hen, gathering her chicks.
Every Thursday evening, a dedicated, geeky group of game-fanatics convened in a basement room to put his game and the software through its paces. If there were any glitches, he was certain they'd be the ones to find them and tell him. They took pleasure in it, telling him, as much as they did in playing the game.
"We could always use another Nazi," she said, giggling. She'd used the line before.
"Maybe. I'll see."
Lucas stood then and shook his left leg out. It'd gone a little numb from sitting that way for so long. He'd lost a little weight up there at the cabin, and there wasn't so much padding now to keep his bone off the nerve in his leg. He stepped over to her, limping a step, and gave Elle another peck. She held his arms again. Longer, this time.
When he left, the nun who'd been sitting outside had been replaced by another, one he knew.
"Hi, Lucas. Long time, eh?" She hailed from Canada, and still had that little inflection at the end. Made him smile.
"Take care, Sister," he said, and headed down the hall, still limping. Jesus, I'm falling apart, he said. Elle stood back from her doorway, watching him go, and lifted her rosary. She made the Sign of the Cross over the Crucifix to start, and then moved her fingers along to the first bead.
His car took him home. Didn't even know how he got there until he was there.
The mail had piled up, dropped through a slot next to the door, and all over the floor. He'd made a couple of runs back home, during the month he'd been up at the lake, to check on things. Nothing had moved. Just the mail piling up. So he'd stuffed it all into his seat and brought it back to the cabin with him.
A couple more bills in this batch. He'd sit down tonight and write out the checks; get 'em into the mail tomorrow. He kicked off his shoes near the door and walked in his bare feet over the hardwood to the kitchen.
Original, he thought to himself.
The hardwood on the main floor had been the thing that'd sold him on the house. Must have been hidden under carpet for all those years, and then they'd ripped it up to replace it before they sold the house; realized what a gold-mine they had. Didn't see wood like that much anymore. Deep red-hued oak, and not a scratch on it.
Until the Crow.
He'd come to the house. Armed to the teeth. Hidden in his garage.
Jenn and the baby were here, and the Crow had blasted his way inside, after him. Jesus!
By the time it was done, his floor had a dozen gaping holes blasted through. All over the whole damn thing. The Crow'd shot straight down, right through the floor, hoping to pick them off in the basement. He'd almost succeeded.
If it hadn't been for the standing gun safe down there, where he'd stuffed Jenn and the baby, and the heavy workbench at the other end of the basement, where he'd taken refuge himself, they'd all have been goners.
The fire from the gas-bomb he'd chucked down the stairs should have finished them off, too.
But, by then, Lucas had gone to that blackest part of his soul.
And he hadn't cared anymore what would happen to him. He'd rushed up the burning stairs like some crazed heathen, and put an end to the damn thing.
Lucas looked around him now.
Empty house.
No Jenn. No baby Sarah to toddle around and slobber on him with her wet daddy-kisses.
Jenn had been so pissed with him – after how it'd ended.
She'd stormed out with Sarah, and that was the last time they'd seen each other, for a long, long time.
Didn't answer his calls, either.
She could carry a grudge, that woman.