Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,126

case and he took them out, inserted the batteries, put on the neck strap, fiddled with them until he understood how they worked.

Next, he set up his iPad, went on the motel Wi-Fi to Google Earth and called up a satellite view of the Coil house, which was in an exurban area northwest of town. From the satellite, the countryside around Tifton looked like a giant yellow-and-green jigsaw, the yellow being irregularly-shaped farm fields, interspersed with forest land.

The Coil house, which appeared to be long and single-storied, was on a small lake or a large pond. In addition to the pond, the Coils had a good-sized swimming pool, glowing aqua-green in the satellite image, screened from the road by the house and what in the north might have been called a woodlot.

Lucas didn’t know what you’d call it in the south, but there were a lot of trees, which was both good and bad. Nobody would see him, but he might not see Dunn, either.

Had to think like Dunn. He peered down at the satellite view, thought that Dunn might be looking at the same thing. Where would he put himself? How would he kill Audrey Coil—or maybe all the Coils?

An ambush at the house seemed simplest; otherwise, how would Dunn know where she’d be? Maybe the Tifton high school? Was there a private school? Lucas didn’t know, but, he thought, neither would Dunn.

Would Dunn risk a straightforward house invasion, going in with a high-capacity gun in an effort to kill everybody? He might . . . but if he did, there would be no guarantee that Audrey would even be in the house. He’d want to see her, Lucas thought.

* * *

—

THOUGH IT WAS DARK, he decided to have a look at the house and headed out again, across Tifton—a bigger town than he’d expected—past an ag college and around a couple of corners and then out Carpenter Road. The road was flat blacktop, with widely spaced houses set well back, usually in stands of pine trees. With a couple of turns off Carpenter, he was cruising past the Coil place, which was lit up like Christmas, with five cars in the circular driveway.

No signs of media, but two of the cars had a cop-like appearance—rode hard and put up wet, bland sedans, older.

There were woods across the road from the Coil house, and from two particular angles, a shooter could see down the opposite ends of the driveway right to the front door. The ends of the driveway were thirty-five or forty yards apart, the wooded shooting positions perhaps sixty to seventy yards apart. He drove on past for a half-mile or so, then turned around, waited a bit, and then drove past the house again. No change. Still a cop vibe from the sedans. Maybe there were cops inside the house, as bodyguards.

The woods across the road from the south end of the driveway seemed to have a piece of higher ground, a hump, that would make a better shooting platform than the lower ground on the north. Lucas made a mental note.

* * *

—

WHEN HE GOT back to the Country Inn, he called Weather to tell her where he was; they talked for fifteen minutes and she said, “I still don’t understand why you’re there by yourself. What happened to Bob and Rae?”

“I sent them home—at the time, it didn’t seem like we’d need them,” Lucas said. “Now . . . well, this was a last-minute thing. I’m operating on a hunch.”

“You’re going to talk to the local police tomorrow, right?”

“Sure. If . . . I can. I need to look at the situation. I could be embarrassing myself.”

“Lucas . . .”

“I’ll talk to them,” he said. When they were off the phone, he added, “After I look at the situation.”

* * *

—

HE HADN’T COMMITTED to calling the Tifton police to alert them of his presence, as Weather had demanded, because he didn’t want to lie directly to her. He would eventually call the police, he believed, but not until after he’d dealt with Dunn.

If he talked to the police, and told them what he believed about Dunn’s movements, they’d probably throw a cordon around the house, which Dunn would see. And the cops would probably call the feds, who’d send in even more troops. The same thing would be true if he talked to the Coils ahead of time. If all those officers and agents did everything right, and Lucas had guessed right about