Twisted Prey (Lucas Davenport #28)(99)

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AT SIX O’CLOCK, Lucas walked through the drizzling rain to meet with Smalls at Kitten Carter’s apartment. After shaking hands, and offering Lucas a beer, Smalls said to him, “Tell me every goddamn thing.”

Lucas did. They talked for an hour, and, as they finished, Smalls was pulling a tuxedo out of a garment bag. “Hate these fucking conventions. But it’s either conventions or spending my own money to get reelected.”

“Well, Jesus, you wouldn’t want to do that,” Lucas said.

When he left Smalls, Lucas walked back to the hotel, picked up Bob and Rae, and called Moy, who said that Claxson was still at the Ritz.

“Now what?” Bob asked.

“Gonna watch the ball game,” Lucas said.

“Mind if I hang out?” Bob asked. “I mean, unless you’re going to be laying around naked or something.”

“Absolutely,” Lucas said. “Rae?”

“I’m gonna go read,” she said. “Call me if anything happens. I’m so fuckin’ bored that if I knew where the local muggers hang out, I’d go over there for a stroll.”

Rae read, Lucas and Bob settled in for a Nationals game, and, at nine o’clock, Moy called. “Claxson’s moving. He’s moving fast.”



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TEN MINUTES LATER, Lucas, Bob, and Rae were in the Evoque and running hot, Moy calling every couple of minutes to give them updates. At first, Moy thought Claxson was headed back to his house. “Wonder if he thinks he can get in? The place is sealed . . . He can’t be dumb enough to go in anyway, can he?”

“Maybe he’s going to throw a Molotov cocktail through the window,” Bob suggested.

“You don’t really think that . . .”



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CLAXSON WASN’T GOING to his house. He drove past McLean, where he lived, and continued west to the town of Great Falls, still on the Virginia side of the river. “One of my people passed him,” Moy said. “He appears to be alone.”

“He must know he’s being monitored, even if he doesn’t know you’re following him,” Lucas said. “He can’t be going somewhere he shouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t think he would,” Moy said. “By the way, we’ve notified Agent Chase. She’s on her way.”

“Is that normal?”

“No, but this is getting some attention at the Bureau. She wants to be on top of everything because, well, that’s just the way she is.”

“You’re saying she’s a bureaucratic climber?”

“No. She’s very . . . conscientious,” Moy said cautiously.

“Okay,” Lucas said.

Five minutes later, Moy called back. “He’s getting off the highway.” And five minutes after that, “He’s pulled into a house off Chesapeake Drive. We’re running the address.” And five minutes after that, “The house belongs to Charles Douglas. He’s Heracles’s main company attorney.”

“Okay,” Lucas said. “Shoot. I was kinda hoping he was running for it.”



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“MAKES SENSE HE’D TALK to the company attorney after what’s happening at the company,” Bob said, as they drove toward Great Falls. “Claxson must know it’s too late to bug Douglas’s house. Nice safe place to talk.”

“I’d kill to know what they’re saying,” Lucas said.

“We could sneak up to the house and put our ears to the window,” Rae said. “Done that a few times.”

“Can’t do it in this neighborhood,” Bob said. “I’ve been looking it up on my phone, and it’s one of those richie rich places. Sneaking through backyards could be bad for your health.”

“The other thing is,” Lucas said, “if we got caught listening in to a private conversation with his attorney, we could go to jail ourselves.”



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MOY HAD SET UP an observation post a block from Douglas’s house, in the driveway of a neighbor, where they were hidden from the road by a screen of oaks. They’d gotten the spot easily enough: Moy pulled into the drive, leaned on the doorbell until the owner came to the door, showed him his ID, and asked if they could park there “on a matter of national security.”

The neighbor had many questions, none of which were answered, but agreed to let Moy’s team wait in the driveway. Before Lucas, Bob, and Rae arrived, one of Moy’s minions, dressed in camo and wearing night vision goggles, snuck off through the trees, set up across the road from Douglas’s house with a radio and a chicken salad sandwich. They couldn’t bug Claxson’s attorney, but there was no law against watching him.



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LUCAS, BOB, AND RAE arrived fifteen minutes after Moy. Moy, an Asian American, had a West Coast beachboy accent and hard angles in his face. “Nothing happening,” he said. “We got a guy a hundred feet out with a direct view of the house.”

“How far away are we right here?” Lucas asked.