DARRELL HANSON and his wife went through some preliminary motions to sue the state for damage to their house caused by the search, but settled out of court for a minor payment. One of the state lawyers, whom Lucas knew, said that the prospect of being publicly tied to Roger Hanson had changed their minds, especially since the search had produced the DNA test of Darrell Hanson, and had pointed the finger at Roger.
THE BCA’S LAB BOSS did a number of interviews about the use of DNA to spot a killer through tests done on a relative. He suggested that it opened whole new doors to a time when, effectively, everybody in the country would be traceable through DNA. He had T-shirts printed that said “DNA,” and, beneath that, “World Tour.” Everybody thought they looked cheap and ugly, but Lucas’s housekeeper found that they made excellent dust rags.
LUCAS WAS LARGELY HEALED in two weeks. Weather took the stitches out, humming as she did it. It hurt a little, but that didn’t seem to bother her.
LUCAS FINALLY SAT ALONE in his den, when the house was momentarily empty, and thought about it all. He hadn’t been responsible for the Jones girls’ kidnapping—that’d been all Hanson. The VHS tapes suggested that Hanson hadn’t had the girls very long before he killed them, so even if Lucas had pushed, and had been successful, he couldn’t have saved them.
All those others, though . . . he might have saved them if he’d persisted in his hunt for John Fell. Weather kept telling him that it wasn’t a perfect world, and anyway, he wasn’t perfect. Things would happen. Good, hardworking, innocent people died of cancer all the time—and Hanson had simply been a cancer in the social system.
Lucas knew all that was true, but it was not something he could emotionally buy into. He didn’t believe he could fix the world, but he felt like he could.
He just had to try harder.
ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD
Rules of Prey
Shadow Prey
Eyes of Prey
Silent Prey
Winter Prey
Night Prey
Mind Prey
Sudden Prey
The Night Crew
Secret Prey
Certain Prey
Chosen Prey
Mortal Prey
Naked Prey
Hidden Prey
Broken Prey
Dead Watch
Invisible Prey
Phantom Prey
Wicked Prey
Storm Prey
KIDD NOVELS
The Fool’s Run
The Empress File
The Devil’s Code
The Hanged Man’s Song
VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS
Dark of the Moon
Heat Lightning
Bad Blood
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
THEN
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
NOW
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25