Secret Prey

  P RAISE FOR

  J OHN S ANDFORD AND S ECRET P REY

  ‘‘How good is Secret Prey ? Well, when I get the time, I intend to take a look at Rules of Prey —the first in the Lucas Davenport series.’’

  —USA Today

  ‘‘Satisfying.’’

  —San Francisco Examiner

  ‘‘Sandford is back in top form.’’

  —Associated Press

  ‘‘With further explorations into Davenport’s psyche, and the creation of a truly memorable villain, Sandford has fashioned a topnotch whodunit/thriller.’’

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  ‘‘Explosive . . . Inventive and daring . . . No one who starts this novel will be able to put it down . . . Another winner from Sandford.’’

  — The Daily Sun (GA)

  ‘‘Sandford keeps all of his plots and subplots humming along in apparent effortless harmony.’’

  — Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  ‘‘Events from earlier Prey novels weave intriguingly through this one, inviting the reader to plunge into the entire series. Not a bad idea.’’

  — Kirkus Reviews

  ‘‘A sparkling mystery . . . Sandford writes at the top of his game.’’

  — Lexington Herald-Leader

  ‘‘Exciting . . . His best work to date. The hero is drawn to perfection . . . This book has heart, action, and moxie.’’

  — Without a Clue

  ‘‘Nicely done . . . Sandford keeps it fresh.’’

  — St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press

  ‘‘The best Prey in some years . . . Davenport continues to develop: tougher, coarser, and more vulnerable.’’

  — San Antonio Express News

  ‘‘Sandford has allowed his character to change and improve . . . without sacrificing any of the action and thrills.’’

  — Orlando Sentinel

  R ULES OF P REY

  Sandford’s smash bestselling debut—introducing

  Lucas Davenport . . .

  ‘‘Sleek and nasty . . . it’s a big, scary, suspenseful read, and I loved every minute of it.’’

  —Stephen King

  ‘‘A haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller.’’

  —Carl Hiaasen

  S HADOW P REY

  Lucas Davenport goes on a city-to-city search for

  a bizarre ritualistic killer . . .

  ‘‘When it comes to portraying twisted minds, Sandford has no peers.’’

  —Associated Press

  ‘‘Ice-pick chills . . . excruciatingly tense . . . a doublepumped roundhouse of a thriller.’’

  — Kirkus Reviews

  E YES OF P REY

  Davenport risks his sanity to stalk the most brilliant and dangerous man he has ever known, a doctor named

  Michael Bekker . . .

  ‘‘Relentlessly swift. Genuinely suspenseful . . . excellent.’’

  — Los Angeles Times

  ‘‘Engrossing . . . oneof the most horrible villains this side of Hannibal the Cannibal.’’

  — Richmond Times-Dispatch

  S ILENT P REY

  Michael Bekker, a psychopath Davenport captured in Eyes of Prey, escapes . . .

  ‘‘Sleek and nasty . . . superb!’’

  — St. Paul Pioneer Press

  ‘‘ Silent Prey terrifies . . . just right for fans of The Silence of the Lambs .’’

  — Booklist

  W INTER P REY

  In the icy woods of rural Wisconsin, Davenport searches for a brutal killer known as the Iceman . . .

  ‘‘Vastly entertaining . . . a furious climactic chase . . . One of the best Preys yet.’’

  — Kirkus Reviews

  ‘‘An intense thriller with an unlikely killer.’’

  —Playboy

  N IGHT P REY

  Davenport faces a master thief who becomes obsessed with a

  beautiful woman—then carves her initials into his victims . . .

  ‘‘One of the most engaging characters in contemporary fiction.’’

  —Detroit News

  ‘‘ Night Prey sizzles . . . positively chilling.’’

  —St. Petersburg Times

  M IND P REY

  Lucas Davenport tracks a vicious kidnapper who knows more about mind games than Lucas himself . . .

  ‘‘His seventh, and best, outing in the acclaimed Prey suspense series.’’

  —People

  ‘‘Grip-you-by-the-throat thrills . . . impossible to put down.’’

  —Houston Chronicle

  S UDDEN P REY

  Davenport falls prey to the purest, simplest criminal motivation: revenge . . .

  ‘‘The story will clamp down like a bear trap on all who open its covers.’’

  —Publishers Weekly

  ‘‘Unquestionably the best [ Prey ] yet, a tale of perverse revenge that strikes very close to home.’’

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  T HE N IGHT C REW

  A People magazine ‘‘Page-Turner’’

  A mobile unit of video freelancers, they prowl the midnight streets for news to sell to the highest network bidder.

  Murders. Robberies. High-speed chases. For them, it is an exhilarating life. But tonight, two deaths will change everything . . .

  ‘‘This is fresh ground for Sandford.’’

  —Chicago Tribune

  ‘‘With its pulse-quickening plot and attractive heroine, you’ll be hooked to the finish.’’

  —People

  ‘‘This is riveting, intense crime fiction . . . lean-andmean . . . Perfect for the high-tech ’90s, replete with bursts of black prose that zap the reader like quick video cuts.’’

  —Cedar Rapids Gazette

  And don’t miss John Sandford’s thrilling novels of stings and swindles . . .

  T HE E MPRESS F ILE

  Kidd and LuEllen are a pair of lovers and liars plotting the ultimate scam . . . until everything goes wrong . . .

  ‘‘Alfred Hitchcock would have been delighted.’’

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  ‘‘The imaginative con scheme is clever . . . but the biggest thrills occur when events don’t go as planned.’’

  —Library Journal

  T HE F OOL’S R UN

  Kidd and LuEllen return for a killer con in the high-tech world of industrial espionage . . .

  ‘‘A gripping, ultramodern novel . . . fast-paced and suspenseful.’’

  —Chicago Tribune

  ‘‘Fast-paced action, high-intellect puzzle-solving, dandy characters . . . if you start guessing outcomes, you are fooled.’’

  —Minneapolis Star & Tribune

  ‘‘Sandford is one of the most skilled thriller writers at work in this country or any other.’’

  —Richmond Times Dispatch

  Berkley Books by John Sandford

  RULES OF PREY

  SHADOW PREY

  EYES OF PREY

  SILENT PREY

  WINTER PREY

  NIGHT PREY

  MIND PREY

  SUDDEN PREY

  THE NIGHT CREW

  THE EMPRESS FILE

  THE FOOL’S RUN

  SECRET PREY

  CERTAIN PREY

  SECRET

  PREY

  ONE

  THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD PULLED THE DOOR shut behind him, stacked his rifle against the log-sided cabin, and walked down to the end of the porch. The light from the kitchen window punched out into the earlymorning darkness and the utter silence of the woods. Two weeks of nightly frost had killed the insects and had driven the amphibians into hibernation: for a few seconds, he was alone.

  Then the chairman yawned and unzipped his bib overalls, unbuttoned his pants, shuffled his feet, the
porch boards creaking under his insulated hunting boots. Nothing like a good leak to start the day, he thought. As he leaned over the low porch rail, he heard the door opening behind him. He paid no attention.

  Three men and a woman filed out of the house, pretended not to notice him.

  ‘‘Need some snow,’’ the woman said, peering into the dark. Susan O’Dell was a slender forty, with a tanned, dry face, steady brown eyes, and smile lines around her mouth. A headlamp was strapped around her blaze-orange stocking cap, but she hadn’t yet switched it on. She wore a blazeorange Browning parka, snowmobile pants, and carried a backpack and a Remington .308 mountain rifle with a Leupold Vari-X III scope. Not visible was the rifle’s custom trigger job. The trigger would break at exactly two and a half pounds.

  ‘‘Cold sonofabitch, though,’’ said Wilson McDonald, as he slipped one heavy arm through his gun sling. McDonald was a large man, and much too heavy: in his hunting suit he looked like a blaze-orange Pillsbury Doughboy. He carried an aging .30–06 with open sights, bought in the thirties at Abercrombie & Fitch in New York. At forty-two, he believed in a certain kind of tradition—his summer car, a racing-green XK-E, was handed down from his father; his rifle came from his grandfather; and his spot in the country club from his great-grandfather. He would defend the Jaguar against far better cars; the .30–06 against more modern rifles, and the club against parvenus, hirelings, and of course, blacks and Jews.

  ‘‘You all ready?’’ asked the chairman of the board, as he came back toward them, buttoning his pants. He was a fleshy, red-faced man, the oldest of the group, with a thick shock of white hair and caterpillar-sized eyebrows. As he got closer to the others, he could smell the odor of pancakes and coffee still steaming off them. ‘‘I don’t want anybody stumbling around in the goddamn woods just when it’s getting good.’’

  They all nodded: they’d all been here before.

  ‘‘Getting late,’’ said O’Dell. She wore the parka hood down, and the parka itself was still unzipped; but she’d wrapped a red and white kaffiyeh around her neck and chin. Purchased on a whim in the Old City of Jerusalem, and meant to protect an Arab from the desert sun, it was now protecting a third-generation Irishwoman from the Minnesota cold. ‘‘We better get out there and get settled.’’

  Five forty-five in the morning, opening day of deer season. O’Dell led the way off the porch, the chairman of the board at her shoulder, the other three men trailing behind.

  Terrance Robles was the youngest of them, still in his mid-thirties. He was a blocky man with thick, blackrimmed glasses and a thin, curly beard. His watery blue eyes showed a nervous flash, and he laughed too often, a shallow, uncertain chuckle. He carried a stainless Sako .270, mounted with a satin-finished Nikon scope. Robles had little regard for tradition: everything he hunted with was new technology.

  James T. Bone might have been Susan O’Dell’s brother: forty, as she was, Bone was slim, tanned, and dark-eyed, his face showing a hint of humor in a surface that was hard as a nut. He brought up the rear with a .243 Mauser Model 66 cradled in his bent left arm.

  Four of the five—the chairman of the board, Robles, O’Dell, and Bone—were serious hunters.

  The chairman’s father had been a country banker. They’d had a nice rambling stone-and-redwood home on Blueberry Lake south of Itasca, and his father had been big in Rotary and the Legion. The deer hunt was an annual ritual: the chairman of the board had hung twenty-plus bucks in his forty-six years: real men didn’t kill does.

  Robles had come to hunting as an adult, joining an elk hunt as a thirtieth-birthday goof, only to be overwhelmed by its emotional power. For the past five years he’d hunted a half-dozen times annually, from Alaska to New Zealand.

  O’Dell was a rancher’s daughter. Her father owned twenty miles of South Dakota just east of the Wyoming line, and she’d joined the annual antelope hunt when she was eight. During her college years at Smith, when the other girls had gone to Ivy League football games with their beaux, she’d flown home for the shooting.

  Bone was from Mississippi. He’d learned to hunt as a child, because he wanted to eat. Once, when he was nine, he’d made soup for himself and his mother out of three carefully shot blackbirds.

  Only McDonald disdained the hunt. He’d shot deer in the past—he was a Minnesota male, and males of a certain class were expected to do that—but he considered the hunt a pain in the ass. If he killed a deer, he’d have to gut it. Then he’d smell bad and get blood on his clothing. Then he’d have to do something with the meat. A wasted day. At the club, they’d be playing some serious gin—drinking some serious gin, he thought—and here he was, about to climb a goddamned tree.

  ‘‘Goddamnit,’’ he said aloud.

  ‘‘What?’’ The chairman grunted, turned to look at him.

  ‘‘Nothing. Stray thought,’’ McDonald said.

  One benefit: If you killed a deer, people at the club attributed to you a certain common touch—not commonness, which would be a problem, but contact with the earth, which some of them perceived as a virtue. That was worth something; not enough to actually be out here, but something.

  THE SCENT OF WOODSMOKE HUNG AROUND THE cabin, but gave way to the pungent odor of burr oaks as they pushed out into the trees. Fifty yards from the cabin, as they moved out of range of the house lights, O’Dell switched on her headlamp, and the chairman turned on a hand flash. Dawn was forty-five minutes away, but the moonless sky was clear, and they could see a long thread of stars above the trail: the Dipper pointing down to the North Star.

  ‘‘Great night,’’ Bone said, his face turned to the sky.

  A small lake lay just downslope from the cabin like a smoked mirror. They followed a shoreline trail for a hundred and fifty yards, moved single file up a ridge, and continued on, still parallel to the lake.

  ‘‘Don’t step in the shit,’’ the woman said, her voice a snapping break in the silence. She caught a pile of fresh deer droppings with her headlamp, like a handful of purple chicken hearts.

  ‘‘We did that last week with the Cove Links deal,’’ the chairman said dryly.

  The ridge separated the lake and a tamarack swamp. Fifty yards further on, Robles said, ‘‘I guess this is me,’’ and turned off to the left toward the swamp. As he broke away from the group, he switched on his flash, said, ‘‘Good luck, guys,’’ and disappeared down a narrow trail toward his tree stand.

  The chairman of the board was next. Another path broke to the left, toward the swamp, and he took it, saying, ‘‘See you.’’

  ‘‘Get the buck,’’ said O’Dell, and McDonald, O’Dell, and Bone continued on.

  THE CHAIRMAN FOLLOWED THE NARROW FLASHLIGHT beam forty-five yards down a gentle slope to the edge of the swamp. The lake was still open, but the swamp was freezing out, the shallow pockets of water showing windowpane ice.

  One stumpy burr oak stood at the boundary of the swamp; the kind of oak an elf might live in. The chairman dug into his coat pocket, took out a long length of nylon parachute cord, looped it around his rifle sling, leaned the rifle against the tree, and began climbing the foot spikes that he’d driven into the tree eight years earlier.

  He’d taken three bucks from this stand. The county road foreman, who’d been cleaning ditches in preparation for the snow months, told him that a twelve-pointer had moved into the neighborhood during the summer. The foreman had seen him cutting down this way, across the middle of the swamp toward this very tree. Not more than two weeks ago.

  The chairman clambered into the stand fifteen feet up the tree, and settled into the bench with his back to the oak. The stand looked like a suburban deck, built of preservative-treated two-by-sixes, with a two-by-four railing that served as a gun rest. The chairman slipped off his pack, hung it from a spike to his right, and pulled the rifle up with the parachute cord.

  The cartridges were still warm from his pocket as he loaded the rifle. That wouldn’t last long. Temperatures were in the teens, with an icy wind cutt
ing at exposed skin. Later in the day, it would warm up, maybe into the upper thirties, but sitting up here, early, exposed, it would get real damn cold. Freeze the ass off that fuckin’ O’Dell. O’Dell always made out that she was impervious to cold; but this day would get to her.

  The chairman, wrapped in nylon and Thinsulate, was still a little too warm from the hike in, and he half dozed as he sat in the tree, waiting for first light. He woke once more to the sound of a deer walking through the dried oak leaves, apparently following a game trail down to the swamp. The animal settled on the hillside behind him.

  Now that was interesting.

  Forty or fifty yards away, no more. Still up the ridge, but it should be visible after sunrise, if it moved again. If it didn’t, he’d kick it out on the way back to the cabin.

  He sat waiting, listening to the wind. Most of the oaks still carried their leaves, dead brown, but hanging on. When he closed his eyes, their movement sounded like a crackling of a small, intimate wood fire.

  The chairman sighed: so much to do.

  THE KILLER WAS DRESSED IN BLAZE ORANGE AND WAS moving quietly and quickly along the track. Dawn was not far away and the window of opportunity could be measured in minutes:

  Here: now twenty-four steps down the track. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . . twenty-three, twentyfour. A tree here to the left . . . Wish I could use a light .

  The oak tree was there, its bark rough against the fingertips. And just to the right, a little hollow in the ground behind a fallen aspen.

  Just get down here . . . quietly, quietly! Did he hear me? These leaves . . . didn’t think about the leaves yesterday, now it sounds like I’m walking on cornflakes . . . Where’s that log, must be right here, must be . . . ah!

  From the nest in the ground, the fallen aspen was at exactly the right height for a rifle rest. A quick glance through the scope: nothing but a dark disc.

  What time? My God, my watch has stopped. No. Sixseventeen. Okay. There’s time. Settle down. And listen! If anybody comes, may have to shoot . . . Now what time? Six- eighteen. Only two minutes gone? Can’t remember . . . two minutes, I think .

  There’d be only one run at this. There were other people nearby, and they were armed. If someone else came stumbling along the track, and saw the orange coat crouched in the hole . . .