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 The Prey Series Invisible Prey Virgil Flowers The Kidd Series Other Novels Etcetera | Invisible Prey The Prey series contains strong language and scenes
of graphic violence and sex, and it may thus be inappropriate or offensive to
some readers. The excerpt below is the complete first chapter of
Invisible Prey, and it has not been censored in any way. If you are
offended by this sort of material, or will get in trouble for reading it (e.g.
if your parents think it would be inappropriate for you), do not
continue. Thank you. An anonymous van, some-kind-of-pale, cruised Summit Avenue,
windows dark with the coming night. The killers inside watched three teenagers,
two boys and a girl, hurrying along the sidewalk like wind-blown leaves. The
kids were getting somewhere quick, finding shelter before the storm. The killers trailed them, saw them off, then turned their
faces toward Oak Walk. The mansion was an architectural remnant of the nineteenth
century, red brick with green trim, gloomy and looming in the dying light.
Along the wrought-iron fence, well-tended beds of blue and yellow iris, and
clumps of pink peonies, were going gray to the eye. Oak Walk was perched on a bluff. The back of the house looked
across the lights of St. Paul, down into the valley of the Mississippi, where
the groove of the river had already gone dark. The front faced Summit Avenue;
Oak Walk was the second-richest house on the richest street in town. Six aging burr oaks covered the side yard. In sunlight, their
canopies created a leafy glade, with sundials and flagstone walks, charming
with moss and violets; but moon shadows gave the yard a menacing aura, now
heightened by the lightning that flickered through the incoming clouds. "Like the Munsters should live there," the bigger of the
killers said. "Like a graveyard," the little one agreed. The Weather Channel had warned of tornadic events,
and the killers could feel a twister in the oppressive heat, the smell of ozone
thick in the air. The summer was just getting started. The last snow slipped
into town on May 2, and was gone a day later. The rest of the month had been
sunny and warm, and by the end of it, even the ubiquitous paper-pale blondes
were showing tan lines. Now the first of the big summer winds. Refreshing, if it
didn't knock your house down. On the fourth pass, the van turned into the driveway, eased up
under the portico, and the killers waited there for a porch light. No light
came on. That was good. They got out of the van, one Big, one Little, stood there for
a moment, listening, obscure in the shadows, facing the huge front doors. They
were wearing coveralls, of the kind worn by automotive mechanics, and hairnets,
and nylon stockings over their faces. Behind them, the van's engine ticked as
it cooled. A Wisconsin license plate, stolen from a similar vehicle in a 3M
parking lot, was stuck on the back of the van. Big said, "Let's do it." Little led the way up the porch steps. After a last quick look
around, Big nodded again, and Little pushed the doorbell. They'd done this before. They were good at it. They could feel the footsteps on the wooden floors inside the
house. "Ready," said Big. A moment later, one of the doors opened. A shaft of light
cracked across the porch, flashing on Little's burgundy jacket. Little said a
few words – "Miz Peebles? Is this where the party is?" A slender black woman, sixtyish, Peebles said, "Why no..." Her
jaw continued to work wordlessly, searching for a scream, as she took in the
distorted faces. Little was looking past her at an empty hallway. The
groundskeeper and the cook were home, snug in bed. This polite inquiry at the
door was a last-minute check to make sure that there were no unexpected guests.
Seeing no one, Little stepped back and snapped, "Go." Big went through the door, fast, one arm flashing in the
interior light. Big was carrying a two-foot-long steel gas pipe, with gaffer
tape wrapped around the handle-end. Peebles didn't scream, because she didn't
have time. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open, one hand started up, and
then Big hit her on the crown of her head, crushing her skull. The old woman dropped like a sack of bones. Big hit her again,
as insurance, and then a third time, as insurance on the insurance: three heavy
floor-shaking impacts, whack! whack! whack! Then a voice from up the stairs, tentative, shaky. "Sugar? Who
was it, Sugar?" Big's head turned toward the stairs and Little could hear him
breathing. Big slipped out of his loafers and hurried up the stairs in his
stocking feet, a man on the hunt. Little stepped up the hall, grabbed a corner
of a seven-foot-long Persian carpet and dragged it back to the black woman's
body. And from upstairs, three more impacts: a gasping, thready
scream, and whack! whack! whack! Little smiled. Murder – and the insurance. Little stooped, caught the sleeve of Peebles' housecoat, and
rolled her onto the carpet. Breathing a little harder, Little began dragging
the carpet toward an interior hallway that ran down to the kitchen, where it'd
be out of sight of any of the windows. A pencil-thin line of blood, like a
slug's trail, tracked the rug across the hardwood floor. Peebles' face had gone slack. Her eyes were still open, the
eyeballs rolled up, white against her black face. Too bad about the rug, Little
thought. Chinese, the original dark blue gone pale, maybe 1890. Not a great
rug, but a good one. Of course, it'd need a good cleaning, now, with the
blood-puddle under Peebles' head. Outside, there'd been no sound of murder. No screams or
gunshots audible on the street. A window lit up on Oak Walk's second floor.
Then another on the third floor, and yet another, on the first floor, in the
back, in the butler's pantry: Big and Little, checking out the house, making
sure that they were the only living creatures inside. When they knew that the house was clear, Big and Little met at
the bottom of the staircase. Big's mouth under the nylon was a bloody O. He'd
chewed into his bottom lip while killing the old woman upstairs, something he
did when the frenzy was on him. He was carrying a jewelry box and one hand was
closed in a fist. "You won't believe this," he said. "She had it around her
neck." He opened his fist – his hands were covered with latex kitchen
gloves – to show off a diamond the size of a quail's egg. "Is it real?" "It's real and it's blue. We're not talking Boxsters anymore.
We're talking SLs." Big opened the box. "There's more: earrings, a necklace.
There could be a half-million, right here." "Can Fleckstein handle it?" Big snorted. "Fleckstein's so dirty that he wouldn't recognize
the Mona Lisa. He'll handle it." He pushed the jewelry at Little, started to turn, caught sight
of Peebles lying on the rug. "Bitch," he said, the word grating through his
teeth. "Bitch." In a second, in three long steps, he was on her again, beating
the dead woman with the pipe, heavy impacts shaking the floor. Little went
after him, catching him after the first three impacts, pulling him away, voice
hard, "She's gone, for Christ's sakes, she's gone, she's gone..." "Fucker," Big said. "Piece of shit." Little thought, sometimes, that Big should have a bolt through
his neck. Big stopped, and straightened, looked down at Peebles,
muttered, "She's gone." He shuddered, and said, "Gone." Then he turned to
Little, blood in his eye, hefting the pipe. Little's hands came up: "No, no – it's me. It's me. For
God's sakes." Big shuddered again. "Yeah, yeah. I know. It's you." Little took a step back, still uncertain, and said, "Let's get
to work. Are you okay? Let's get to work." Twenty minutes after they went in, the front door opened
again. Big came out, looked both ways, climbed into the van, and eased it
around the corner of the house and down the side to the deliveries entrance.
Because of the pitch of the slope at the back of the house, the van was no
longer visible from the street. The last light was gone, the night now as dark as a coal sack,
the lightning flashes closer, the wind coming like a cold open palm, pushing
against Big's face as he got out of the van. A raindrop, fat and round as a
marble, hit the toe of his shoe. Then another, then more, cold, going
pat-pat... pat... pat-pat-pat on the blacktop and concrete and brick. He hustled up to the back door; Little opened it from the
inside. "Another surprise," Little said, holding up a painting,
turning it over in the thin light. Big squinted at it, then looked at Little:
"We agreed we wouldn't take anything off the walls." "Wasn't on the walls," Little said. "It was stuffed away in
the storage room. It's not on the insurance list." "Amazing. Maybe we ought to quit now, while we're ahead." "No." Little's voice was husky with greed. "This time...this
time, we can cash out. We'll never have to do this again." "I don't mind," Big said. "You don't mind the killing, but how about thirty years in a
cage? Think you'd mind that?" Big seemed to ponder that for a moment, then said, "All
right." Little nodded. "Think about the SLs. Chocolate for you, silver
for me. Apartments: New York and Los Angeles. Something right on the Park, in
New York. Something where you can lean out the window, and see the Met." "We could buy..." Big thought about it for a few more seconds.
"Maybe... a Picasso?" "A Picasso..." Little thought about it, nodded. "But first
– I'm going back upstairs. "And you..." Big grinned under the mask. "I trash the place. God, I love
this job." Outside, across the back lawn, down the bluff, over the top of
the United hospital buildings and Seventh Street and the houses below, down
three quarters of a mile away, a towboat pushed a line of barges toward the
moorings at Pig's Eye. Not hurrying. Tows never hurried. All around, the lights
of St. Paul sparkled like diamonds, on the first line of bluffs, on the second
line below the Cathedral, on the bridges fore and aft, on the High Bridge
coming up. The pilot in the wheelhouse was looking up the hill at the
lights of Oak Walk, Dove Hill and the Hill House, happened to be looking when
the lights dimmed out, all at once. The rain-front had topped the bluff and was coming down on the
river. Hard rain coming, the pilot thought. Hard rain. |
1 May 2009  The Prey series, the Virgil Flowers series,
the Kidd series, The Night Crew, Dead Watch, The Eye
and the Heart: The Watercolors of John Stuart Ingle, and Plastic
Surgery: The Kindest Cut are copyrighted by John Sandford. All excerpts are
used with permission. All original content on the website (excluding the message
board and some other specifically disclaimed text) is copyright © 2008 by
Roswell Anthony Camp. Please do not steal anything from these pages. If you
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