Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(80)

Chase said to the couple in the doorway, “If we walk over there, you’re not going to call them and warn them, are you?”

The woman said, “We got no phone anymore.”



* * *



—

BOB, RAE, AND LUCAS pulled on bulletproof vests, and Bob and Rae got their rifles and a lot of ammunition. Lucas was good with his Walther. Lucas said to Chase, quietly, “You stay with the truck: you’re like the headquarters. Talk with the SWAT and call the local cops, whoever they are—maybe the sheriff, out here, you know, whoever, and tell them that we have an operation going on. We don’t want some patrol cop spotting us and thinking we’re Arab terrorists and taking a shot before he finds out who we are.”

“I think I’d rather go.”

“You’ve already been shot once and we don’t have a vest for you. Soon as we know what the situation is, we’ll call you. In the meantime, get on the phone.”

She relented and climbed in the truck, and the couple came out to watch as Lucas, Bob, and Rae walked down the line of the driveway, past a crumpled outbuilding that Bob said had once been a chicken coop, and down the fence line. They went through the hole in the fence before they got to an expansive blackberry patch, and, as the woman said, when they broke out of the cover of the woods, they had a detached garage between themselves and the house.

They took turns peeking at the house and the car parked beside it. When Lucas peeked, he turned to the other two and said, “You see that door? It’s open.”

Bob and Rae took turns peeking again, and Rae said, “You’re right. There’s no screen, and there’re bugs out here. I think we got us a problem.”

Lucas said, “Okay. Bob, you go around the other side of the garage, Rae, you stay here. I’m going to walk up to the door like I’m the mailman . . .” He was wearing a sport coat over the vest and he turned the lapels inward, buttoned up the coat to cover it.

“You look like a preacher,” Rae said. “Except for the Walther.”

“If I get in trouble, hose the place,” Lucas said.

“This is where I say, ‘Maybe we should wait for the SWAT team,’” Bob said.

Lucas: “Really?”

“Oh, fuck no. You go, we hose. If there’s serious trouble, get down on your belly real quick.”

“And get to that door real quick,” Rae said. “They can’t have seen us yet. If you get to the door in one second, they won’t have time to react, if they’re in there at all.”



* * *



—

WHEN THEY WERE SET, Lucas said, “I’m going,” and he walked fast to the back door, the Walther held down along his leg. There was a one-step back stoop outside the door, and Lucas stepped up and pushed the door with one finger of his free hand and shouted, “Hello?”

Then he smelled them.



* * *



—

RAE SHOUTED, “Lucas. Lucas.”

“Somebody’s dead,” Lucas shouted back.

“Wait there,” Bob shouted.

He waited and Bob and Rae jogged across the yard, and Rae sniffed and said, “Oh, yeah.” She and Bob led the way through the door, their rifles up and tracking.

The light inside was dim, because all the blinds and curtains were closed, and when Bob stepped into the kitchen with Rae at his shoulder, Lucas said, “Stop,” and reached past Rae’s hip to grope for, and find, a light switch. He flipped it on and a dark shape on the floor became a body.

“Clear it, or wait for SWAT?” Bob asked.

“I think we wait for crime scene,” Lucas said. “There’s nobody here. Not alive. I’d feel them.”

“So . . .”

“Keep your muzzles up, I’m going to walk past you . . .” Lucas brought the Walther up to chest height, stepped carefully past the body and peeked into what he thought was a living room. He saw another shape on the floor. Groped for lights again, found the switch and flicked it on. “Got another one in here . . . Let’s back out.”

“Stink would gag a maggot,” Rae said.

“Of which I’m sure we have some,” Bob said. “These people been dead a while.”

“You guys cover the doors, just in case,” Lucas said. Out in the yard, he called Chase: “We entered the house. We’ve got two dead on the floor, we didn’t look in any rooms except the kitchen and the living room. There could be more. They’ve been dead for a while. Maybe a week. If the SWAT team is coming, they can clear the house, but I don’t think there’s anyone inside, not alive. We need a crime scene unit and some local cops to control the road.”

“Locals are on the way, I’m coming with the car,” she said. “SWAT will be here in fifteen minutes or so. I’m coming.”



* * *



—

IN AN HOUR, there were thirty people on the scene, mostly local cops and FBI. The two victims were tentatively identified as Randy Stokes and his sister Rachel Stokes, from a wallet in the man’s pocket and a wallet from a woman’s purse that had been sitting on a sideboard.

One gun was found in the house, an old Smith and Wesson .357, but no long guns. They did find a box of .223 shells scattered on the floor, so guns were apparently missing.