Prey #05 - Winter Prey by John Sandford

Author:John Sandford [Sandford, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 1994-02-13T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Lucas parked in Weather’s driveway, climbed out of the truck, and trudged to the porch, carrying a bottle of wine. He was reaching for the bell when Weather pulled the door open.

“Fuck dinner,” Lucas said, stepping inside. “Let’s catch a plane to Australia. Lay on the beach for a couple of weeks.”

“I’d be embarrassed. I’m so winter-white I’m transparent,” Weather said. She took the bottle. “Come in.”

She’d taken some trouble, he thought. A handmade rag rug stretched across the entry; that hadn’t been there the night before. A fire crackled in the Volkswagen-sized fireplace. And there was a hint of Chanel in the air. “Pretty impressive, huh? With the fire and everything?”

“I like it,” he said simply. He didn’t smile. He’d been told that his smile sometimes frightened people.

She seemed both embarrassed and pleased. “Leave your coat in the closet and your boots by the door. I just started cooking. Steak and shrimp. We’ll both need heart bypasses if we eat it all.”

Lucas kicked off his boots and wandered through the living room in his stocking feet. He hadn’t seen it in the dark, the night before, and in the morning he’d rushed out, thinking about Bergen . . . .

“How’d the operation go?” he called to her in the kitchen.

“Fine. I had to pin some leg bones back together. Nasty, but not too complicated. This woman went up on her roof to push the snow off, and she fell off instead. Right onto the driveway. She hobbled around for almost four days before she came in, the damn fool. She wouldn’t believe the bone was broken until we showed her the X rays.”

“Huh.” Silver picture frames stood on a couch table, with hand-colored photos of a man and woman, still young. Sailboats figured in half the photographs. Her parents. A small ebony grand piano sat in an alcove, top propped up, sheet music for Erroll Garner’s “Dreamy” on the music stand.

He went back into the kitchen. Weather was wearing a dress, the first he’d seen her in, simple, soft-shouldered; she had a long, slender neck with a scattering of freckles along her spine. She said, smiling, “I’m going to make stuff so good it’ll hurt your mouth.”

“Let me help,” he said.

She had him haul a grill from the basement to the back deck, which she’d partially shoveled off. He stacked it with charcoal and started it. At the same time she put a pot of water on the stove. A bag of oversized, already-shelled shrimp went into a colander, which she set aside. Herbs and a carton of buttermilk became salad dressing; a lump of cheese joined a pile of mushrooms, celery, walnuts, watercress, and apples on the cutting board. She began slicing.

“I won’t ask if you like mushrooms; you’ve got no choice,” she said. “Oh—get the wine going. It’s supposed to breathe for a while.”

The outside temperature had been rising through the afternoon, and was now approaching zero. A breeze had sprung up and felt almost damp compared to the astringent dryness of the air at twenty below.

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